On Sat, 2007-06-09 15:57:55 +1000, Neil Brown wrote: > On Saturday June 9, tarkan@netone.net.tr wrote: > > As we know the forthcoming GPL V3 will be not compatible with the GPL V2 > > and Linux Kernel is GPL V2 only. > > So, another point is, which is previously mentioned by Linus and others, > > that if it is decided to upgrade the Linux Kernel's License to GPL V3, > > it is needed the permission of all the maintainers permission who > > contributed to the Linux Kernel and there are a lot of lost or dead > > maintainers. Which makes it impossible to get all the maintainers' > > permission. > > You don't need the permission of maintainers. You need the permission > of copyright owners. The two groups overlap, but are not the same. > Dead people cannot own anything, even copyright. Their estate > probably can. I don't think it is theoretically impossible to get > everyone's permission, though it may be quite close to practically > impossible. And the next question is: How much copyright does a copyright owner own? For example, think of drivers written by one person, but a small number of lines changed here and there by others to adopt the code to new APIs. Ask them all, I think? MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw@lug-owl.de +49-172-7608481 Signature of: God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of the second : things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die.