From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 16569 invoked by alias); 23 Jul 2007 14:55:14 -0000 Received: (qmail 16560 invoked by uid 22791); 23 Jul 2007 14:55:13 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mout1.freenet.de (HELO mout1.freenet.de) (195.4.92.91) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Mon, 23 Jul 2007 14:55:10 +0000 Received: from [195.4.92.11] (helo=mx1.freenet.de) by mout1.freenet.de with esmtpa (Exim 4.68-dev) (envelope-from ) id 1ICzJT-0000HU-C7; Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:55:07 +0200 Received: from hsi-kbw-082-212-056-027.hsi.kabelbw.de ([82.212.56.27]:63211 helo=[192.168.1.100]) by mx1.freenet.de with esmtpsa (ID ralf.corsepius@freenet.de) (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (port 465) (Exim 4.68 #1) id 1ICzJT-0002zN-6h; Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:55:07 +0200 Subject: Re: Switching GAS to GPLv3 From: Ralf Corsepius To: Nick Clifton Cc: Jakub Jelinek , binutils@sourceware.org In-Reply-To: <4694E508.2020302@redhat.com> References: <20070703113243.GF4603@sunsite.mff.cuni.cz> <4694E508.2020302@redhat.com> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:51:00 -0000 Message-Id: <1185202505.10535.66.camel@mccallum.corsepiu.local> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.10.3 (2.10.3-1.fc7) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mailing-List: contact binutils-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: binutils-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2007-07/txt/msg00355.txt.bz2 On Wed, 2007-07-11 at 15:11 +0100, Nick Clifton wrote: > Hi Jakub, > > > What does this mean for backporting fixes from binutils trunk to older > > binutils releases? > > Does this mean backports are not possible at all, or do we have to > > relicense our legacy releases (that we want to backport stuff to) to GPLv3? > > I have received this reply from the FSF: > > : Since the previous releases were licensed under GPLv2 or later, all > : maintainers need to do is upgrade their backport to GPLv3 or later -- then > : they'll be able to incorporate patches that were never released under > : GPLv2. > : > : If there's enough demand for this, you may be able to make life easier for > : those maintainers, if you want, by providing patches that upgrade the > : license on binutils from "GPLv2 or later" to "GPLv3 or later." Hopefully > : those would be easy to generate after you did this upgrade for the code > : yourself, and each maintainer wouldn't have to do the work themselves. > : After you published them, backport maintainers could apply them to their > : own backports, and then also go ahead to incorporate later patches that > : were released under GPLv3 or later. > > So the answer appears to be that in order to apply patches made to GPLv3 > sources to previous releases we have to change the affected files over > to the GPLv3 as well. In my understanding everybody who submits patches to binutils must have a copyright assignment to the FSF on file (unless patches are considered trivial). I am I wrong in presuming that a patch contributed under a copyright assignment can be implied to cover GPLv2 and GPLv3? In other words, if I's submit a patch against a GPLv3'd version of a package I'd implicitly assume my patch also to be applicable to a GPLv2'd version of the package. Ralf