31–40 of 104 posts
Why the fuck would a library not use the Library GPL? It's the same stupidity as readline.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The line you quoted doesn't appear in the terms of the license; projects can use that language to apply GPLv2 or any later version, but they don't have to do so. Many projects explicitly use version 2 only, most famously the Linux kernel.
So it is effectively their fault for preventing the licence of their project from _ever_ being updated, even in the case where some future legal loophole makes exploiting GPLv2 code possible. It is short sighted essentially freezing the legal status of a project forever, and it is even more idiotic to blame the FSF for being incompatible with projects that voluntarily cut off forward-compatibility by removing the "or…
Could someone tell me, is the FSF actually relevant anymore? If so, how?
There is always the need for somebody to stand up as the opposing side to those who seek to build their business on abusive practices such as vendor lock-in or DRM. The FSF is that voice, and it's a more important role than ever. For example, the FSF has long warned of the dangers of DRM, and in recent years these warnings have proved themselves prescient now that we have things like Amazon remotely wiping Kindles on…
Anyone surprised by the fact that the FSF puts its principles about the purity of free software licenses before pragmatism hasn't been paying much attention. The GPLv3 is the flagship license of the FSF and they think it fixes some issues with the GPLv2, so it's hardly surprising that they will refuse to relicense their high priority projects under the older license. "But you'll gain more users" has never been a reas…
Anyone surprised by the fact that the FSF puts its principles about the purity of free software licenses before pragmatism hasn't been paying much attention. The GPLv3 is the flagship license of the FSF and they think it fixes some issues with the GPLv2, so it's hardly surprising that they will refuse to relicense their high priority projects under the older license. "But you'll gain more users" has never been a reas…
Wasn't that the main motivation for the LGPL?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The line you quoted doesn't appear in the terms of the license; projects can use that language to apply GPLv2 or any later version, but they don't have to do so. Many projects explicitly use version 2 only, most famously the Linux kernel.
So it is effectively their fault for preventing the licence of their project from _ever_ being updated, even in the case where some future legal loophole makes exploiting GPLv2 code possible. It is short sighted essentially freezing the legal status of a project forever, and it is even more idiotic to blame the FSF for being incompatible with projects that voluntarily cut off forward-compatibility by removing the "or…
Or you remove the upgrade clause. In that case you can be absolutely sure that nobody can sneak in new terms that you don't agree with. On the other hand, if you do actually want to change the license (e.g., upgrade to a new version of the GPL), you'll have to ask all the contributors to agree to the license change explicitly.
Could someone tell me, is the FSF actually relevant anymore? If so, how?
There is always the need for somebody to stand up as the opposing side to those who seek to build their business on abusive practices such as vendor lock-in or DRM. The FSF is that voice, and it's a more important role than ever. For example, the FSF has long warned of the dangers of DRM, and in recent years these warnings have proved themselves prescient now that we have things like Amazon remotely wiping Kindles on…
Anyone surprised by the fact that the FSF puts its principles about the purity of free software licenses before pragmatism hasn't been paying much attention. The GPLv3 is the flagship license of the FSF and they think it fixes some issues with the GPLv2, so it's hardly surprising that they will refuse to relicense their high priority projects under the older license. "But you'll gain more users" has never been a reas…
> "But you'll gain more users" has never been a reason for the FSF to compromise on their principles. Wasn't that the main motivation for the LGPL?
The official statement is: "Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that library.
This is why we used the Lesser GPL for the GNU C library. After all, there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have driven proprietary software developers to use another—no problem for them, only for us."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not necessary to include that clause. Many software packages don't. When they talk about making a package GPLv2+, instead of GPLv2, I believe that's the distinction they're talking about.
No, if the clause isn't in there then it doesn't apply. You can talk about anything you want.
I was referring to what the article was "talking about", with /their/ GPLv2+ terminology.
If you license it as GPLv2, it's GPLv2 only.
Anyone surprised by the fact that the FSF puts its principles about the purity of free software licenses before pragmatism hasn't been paying much attention. The GPLv3 is the flagship license of the FSF and they think it fixes some issues with the GPLv2, so it's hardly surprising that they will refuse to relicense their high priority projects under the older license. "But you'll gain more users" has never been a reas…