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Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

dolphin-emu.org

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Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#61

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #43
chii wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then why can you not modify your tivo? GPL2 hasn't had that problem present when it was written, and so tivo found a way to prevent practical modification, even tho they followed the letter of the license. In my eyes, most, if not all open source software should use AGPL, and dual license a commercial license offer for those people who want to buy it for modification. You should contribute, or pay up, else the traged…

AGPL is a market failure as I see it. I understand and sympathize with what that license is trying to do, but in practice, it just means that many companies won't touch that software (or will only touch it in a fashion where they don't modify that part of the system), meaning that there are far fewer adopters at all, and of those that adopt, fewer modify the software, meaning that it evolves more slowly than products…

[deleted]

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#62

Post by TheLoneWolfling »

joesb wrote: post #27
jordigh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people (Linus Torvalds is a notable example) think that GPLv3's provisions that forbid things like locked down hardware are too much. They would rather be "permissive" and allow hardware that restricts what the user can do with it. What good is modifiable software if the hardware will refuse to run software if it's modified? Tell me, Mr Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?

> What good is modifiable software if the hardware will refuse to run software if it's modified? You are free to build your own hardware. GPLv2 ensure software is open, you use GPLv2 software, you ensure the software stay open. It does not try to control other things outside what it gives. "Use my software? Make your hardware open. Use my software? Make your customer service open." No. It's simply "Use my software? M…

> You are free to build your own hardware.

No, no you are not.

The physical problems notwithstanding (you happen to have a semiconductor fab in your basement?), too many things are covered by patents.

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#63

Post by Dylan16807 »

TylerE wrote: post #26
cma wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux had no copyright assignment policy and they didnt put in the GPLv2+ future versions clause--they had so many contributors that they really had no choice but to reject it.

Linus is very anti-GPL3 Quote: "In a very real sense, the GPLv3 asks people to do things that I personally would refuse to do. I put Linux on my kids computers, and I limit their ability to upgrade it. Do I have that legal right (I sure do, I'm their legal guardian), but the point is that this is not about "legality", this is about "morality". The GPLv3 doesn't match what I think is morally where I want to be. I thin…

That's a rather silly argument because it's his hardware...

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#64

Post by Dylan16807 »

glass- wrote: post #42
jordigh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst that could happen is that there is a future GPL version that removes copyleft. If there is a future GPL version that is horrible for the receipient, then at worst that receipient can simply opt for GPLv3. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#V... Clause 14 of GPL 3 also clarifies what later licenses can do. They must be "similar in spirit" and they cannot impose any additional requirem…

Wikipedia's content used to be licensed under GFDL 1.2 or any later version. In order to transition to a more appropriate license the Wikimedia Foundation asked the FSF to release a new version (GFDL 1.3) that specifically allowed relicensing to CC BY-SA. The new license may be "similar in sprit" but what it allows relicensing to may not be.

'relicensing' is also still under the original license as far as I understand it. Isn't it still bound by the clause not to make drastic changes?

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#65

Post by 0x0 »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #28
0x0 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Licensing GPLv2+ means you'll accept any future "GPLv4", "GPLv5" etc without having any idea what those licenses will look like. You might end up not liking having them apply to your code. What if control of FSF is taken over as if like a coup and a nasty "GPLv4" is released?

The way you protect yourself from unknown future licenses is to license the project under GPLv2 but require all contributions to be GPLv2+. When you read and agree to the next version, then you can add it to the project or switch to it completely. This scheme depends on one (main) developer having control over the licensing of a significant part of the code base so it's subject to the "hit by a bus" failure mode.

Is that even possible; how can contributors legally provide patches under a license that is different from the source they are patching? How do you know if there is any "GPLv2 only" code left in the project? Do you track license usage by the code line? Can you add a trailing space to every single line of the code and release it on github as "GPLv2 and later" (hey, it's a patch), thus getting rid of the whole "GPLv2 only" clause?

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#66

Post by stefantalpalaru »

0x0 wrote: post #65
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you protect yourself from unknown future licenses is to license the project under GPLv2 but require all contributions to be GPLv2+. When you read and agree to the next version, then you can add it to the project or switch to it completely. This scheme depends on one (main) developer having control over the licensing of a significant part of the code base so it's subject to the "hit by a bus" failure mode.

Is that even possible; how can contributors legally provide patches under a license that is different from the source they are patching? How do you know if there is any "GPLv2 only" code left in the project? Do you track license usage by the code line? Can you add a trailing space to every single line of the code and release it on github as "GPLv2 and later" (hey, it's a patch), thus getting rid of the whole "GPLv2 o…

> Can you add a trailing space to every single line of the code and release it on github as "GPLv2 and later" (hey, it's a patch), thus getting rid of the whole "GPLv2 only" clause?

No, a patch that doesn't completely replace existing code can not alter it's copyright. As long as you can insure that your GPLv2 code is in the project and not easily replaced, you control the project's license.

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#67

Post by cma »

TylerE wrote: post #26
cma wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux had no copyright assignment policy and they didnt put in the GPLv2+ future versions clause--they had so many contributors that they really had no choice but to reject it.

Linus is very anti-GPL3 Quote: "In a very real sense, the GPLv3 asks people to do things that I personally would refuse to do. I put Linux on my kids computers, and I limit their ability to upgrade it. Do I have that legal right (I sure do, I'm their legal guardian), but the point is that this is not about "legality", this is about "morality". The GPLv3 doesn't match what I think is morally where I want to be. I thin…

I'm not saying he's pro, I'm saying for Linux it didn't matter, because be didn't have a choice. For got he didn't go with GPLv3 so no doubt he is against it.

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#68

Post by dragonwriter »

jordigh wrote: post #24
dragonwriter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if you objection to GPLv2+ is specifically already realized in GPLv3,like, say, the market-differentiated anti-Tivoization rules. (Also, "similar in spirit" is so vague as to be completely meaningless.)

> But what if you objection to GPLv2+ is specifically already realized in GPLv3,like, say, the market-differentiated anti-Tivoization rules. Yeah, if you like tivoisation, you probably don't like the spirit of the GPL at all. Tivoisation is really a loophole that wasn't anticipated in GPLv2. It should not have been allowed by GPLv2, but it simply wasn't anticipated. > (Also, "similar in spirit" is so vague as to be c…

No, vagueness of the level of that GPL phrase isn't how the law is, and, in fact, vagueness can make a law, contract, or, e.g., license provision devoid of legal effect.

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#69

Post by belorn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #68
jordigh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what if you objection to GPLv2+ is specifically already realized in GPLv3,like, say, the market-differentiated anti-Tivoization rules. Yeah, if you like tivoisation, you probably don't like the spirit of the GPL at all. Tivoisation is really a loophole that wasn't anticipated in GPLv2. It should not have been allowed by GPLv2, but it simply wasn't anticipated. > (Also, "similar in spirit" is so vague as to be c…

No, vagueness of the level of that GPL phrase isn't how the law is, and, in fact, vagueness can make a law, contract, or, e.g., license provision devoid of legal effect.

The framework for how judges operate, and the framework for contract law is quite different. Judges has quite a lot of agency and mobility to make common sense decisions. Contract law on other hand must be more rigid, and is designed around making the market more stable and secure.

In a copyright infringement case, a judge would look at license text and make a decision about its meaning. The lawyers would likely try to interpret "similar in spirit" by providing defining points from previous licenses, which a judgment can be based on. How much we trust such decision thus rest on our believes that judges in general can make a reasonable judgment.

Re: Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+

#70

Post by dragonwriter »

belorn wrote: post #69
dragonwriter wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, vagueness of the level of that GPL phrase isn't how the law is, and, in fact, vagueness can make a law, contract, or, e.g., license provision devoid of legal effect.

The framework for how judges operate, and the framework for contract law is quite different. Judges has quite a lot of agency and mobility to make common sense decisions. Contract law on other hand must be more rigid, and is designed around making the market more stable and secure. In a copyright infringement case, a judge would look at license text and make a decision about its meaning. The lawyers would likely try…

> The framework for how judges operate, and the framework for contract law is quite different.

Only in that the latter is a proper subset of the former; more relevantly, in US law, explicit licenses (even gratuitous ones) are applied under contract law principles, so the framework for how judges operate with them is the same as for contracts.

> How much we trust such decision thus rest on our believes that judges in general can make a reasonable judgment.

No, it rests on how much we trust that and also trust that the only reasonable judgement based on the vague text is one that we would prefer.

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