Re: clarification on -only and -or-later

["Bradley M. Kuhn" <bkuhn@ebb.org>]

Jilayne, thanks for noting that discussion about (1) and (3) got mixed up
downthread.  OTOH, the situations are quite similar anyway.

To clarify, I was indeed commenting on your original item (3), not (1):

Jilayne wrote at the start of the thread:
> 3) where the license notice in the file simply points to the COPYING file or
> some other license file that contains the full text of GPL-2.0
> his is a tougher call, as there isn’t really any arguably clear call, but my
> thinking is that we’d use:
> SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later

I think that solution you propose above is correct on item (3), as discussed
in my previous email.

Since you asked me in your follow up to also comment on your original item
(1), that's below:

J Lovejoy wrote:
>      1) where no version is indicated, the license text of GPL (all versions)
>      tells us what to do, " If the Program does not specify a version number
>      of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free
>      Software Foundation.” 
>      - thus, use: SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-1.0-or-later
>      example:
>      * May be copied or modified under the terms of the GNU General Public
>      License

The situation doesn't differ much from (3).  In both cases, a reference is
made to "GPL" without specifying a version number.  GPL (all versions) say
that if it "does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose
any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.".  This is the
very issue that you and I discussed at length when FSF was lobbying for
identifier changes, and we sorted out that indeed that, in any situation
where a version number isn't specified, the quoted text causes maximal
options.

So, in both cases (1) and (3), downstream licensors (which the Linux project
is in this scenario, since it received the contribution 'from someone') can
chose the whole spectrum they want, including GPL-1.0-or-later.

I think choosing the "-only" versions -- while permissible as downstream
licensor (i.e., you can always opt yourself to narrow an -or-later into an
-only) -- unnecessarily limits possibility for code sharing.  Linux is
clearly committed to keeping file-by-file inventory of licensing information,
and given that commitment, the project should strive to keep the most
permissive version of the license it can.  (This situation is akin to the
dual-licensed: "BSD-3-Clause OR GPL-2.0-or-later" -- while BSD-3-Clause can
easily be dropped, it's not recommended for various reasons.)

However, as we discussed in Barcelona, the code sharing argument for GPL-1.0
inclusion is minimal.  No one could think of *any* project that still
*intentionally* includes GPL-1.0-only and/or GPL-1.0-or-later in its license
choices.  If we have an example of that, particular of a program written in
C, that would be a good counter example and would lean me toward thinking
staying with GPL-1.0-or-later in these cases makes sense.  Absent any example
like that, GPL-2.0-or-later is the way to go for examples (1) and (3).

--
Bradley M. Kuhn

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