Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S965113AbWI1Pi7 (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:38:59 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S965118AbWI1Pi7 (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:38:59 -0400 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:28833 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S965113AbWI1Pi7 (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:38:59 -0400 Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 08:38:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Lennart Sorensen cc: Chase Venters , Sergey Panov , Patrick McFarland , Theodore Tso , Alan Cox , Jan Engelhardt , James Bottomley , linux-kernel Subject: Re: GPLv3 Position Statement In-Reply-To: <20060928135510.GR13641@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> Message-ID: References: <1158941750.3445.31.camel@mulgrave.il.steeleye.com> <1159415242.13562.12.camel@sipan.sipan.org> <200609272339.28337.chase.venters@clientec.com> <20060928135510.GR13641@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1925 Lines: 43 On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Lennart Sorensen wrote: > > I wonder if perhaps the solution should be that the GPLv3 draft should > be renamed to something else to allow RMS to create his new license that > does exactly what he wants it to do, without hijacking existing GPLv2 > code using a license that in many people's opinion is NOT in the spirit > of the GPLv2 (which it could be argued overrides the "or later" part of > the license). I've argued that in the past, and so have others. I think the GPLv3 could well try to stand on its own, without being propped up by a lot of code which was written by people who may or may not agree with the changes. The whole "in the spirit of" thing is very much debatable - the FSF will claim that it's in _their_ spirit, but the whole point of the language is not to re-assure _them_, but others, so the argument (which I've heard over and over again) that _their_ spirit matters more is somewhat dubious. I would personally think that a much less contentious thing would have been to make a future "GPL" only happens if some court of law actually struck down something, or some actual judge made it clear that something could be problematic. In other words, it shouldn't extend on the meaning of the license, it should be used to _fix_ actual problems. Not imagined ones. Instead, so far, every single lawsuit about the GPLv2 has instead strengthened the thing. NONE of the worries that people have had (language, translation, whatever) have actually been problems. The GPLv2 is stronger today than it was 15 years ago! But there are certainly tons of non-legal reasons why the FSF doesn't want to go that way. Linus - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/