Re: Changing Setup's license to GPLv3+

[Warren Young <wyml@etr-usa.com>]

On Jan 22, 2016, at 9:54 AM, Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
> 
> On Jan 21 15:55, Warren Young wrote:
>> On Jan 21, 2016, at 3:49 AM, Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> does anything speak against switching Setup's license to GPLv3+?
>>> If nobody complains, I'll bump to v3+ in a week or so.
>> 
>> Can you actually do that, legally?  I thought the copyright
>> assignments only applied to the DLL, not to setup.exe, so all
>> setup.exe contributors retained their copyright.
> 
> I'm not trying to do that single-handedly and without reason.  I'm
> asking here to reach out to the current active developers.  A switch
> from GPLv2+ to GPLv3+ works without having to reach out to *all*
> copyright holder.

I don’t think I agree with that.

Let’s say I write a standalone program and license it under GPLv2+ and give you a copy.  You can’t then relicense it under GPLv3 or GPLv3+ just because I said “or later” in the license.  *I* can relicense it, but only because I hold the original copyright.

All “or later” gives you the right to do is treat the code *as if* I had originally licensed it as v3, and then only if you want to.  This lets you link v2+ code to v3.  (But not v2-only code to v3!  More below.)

I think you’d still have to get permission from all people who still have code in the current setup.exe sources.

>> I can’t say I’m wild about GPLv3, for reasons which don’t have to be
>> rehashed here, being well-documented already:
> 
> GPLv3 is a nice license, IMHO.  I don't agree with Linus on that call.

It’s about a lot more than just Linus Torvalds and his personality quirks.

If you look at license stats, GPL is falling:

  http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2013/lcs-slides-aaronw/#/rm-chart
  https://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2011/12/15/on-the-continuing-decline-of-the-gpl/

We’re seeing a big shift towards permissive licenses, and I think the GPLv3 controversies have a lot to do with that.

>> What actual problem are you trying to solve with the change?
> 
> A certain mail to the cygwin ML might require some action.  The action
> is most thorougly (and quickly) done by pulling in some code from the
> Cygwin DLL.  But Cygwin is under v3+, so it's incompatible with the
> current v2+ in Setup.  That's why I'd like to bump version.

As I understand it (and IANAL) the GPL v2/v3 incompatibility only occurs with GPLv2-only licenses.  See the chart here, from the FSF:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Compatibility_and_multi-licensing

I suspect it is not kosher to intermix v2+ and v3+ code in the same file, but putting the v3+ code copied from the DLL into a separate file and calling out to it from the v2 code as if it were a library may be okay.

I could be wrong, in which case this is another argument against GPLv3.  The thing is viral even to past versions of itself.

FWIW, I’m no zealot.  I’ve got GPL’d and LGPL’d code out in the world.  I’m just pointing out that restrictive licenses (“free,” hah!) bring along a bag of problems.  GPLv3 adds a bunch more restrictions.