Re: clarification on -only and -or-later

[J Lovejoy <opensource@jilayne.com>]

HI Bradley,

Thanks for weighing in there. I think my original examples got a but lost in the various back and forth. So, let me reproduce and re-match:

	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

This is what Allison and I were going back and forth on.  Net sum being: I was pointing out that under a literal reading of the license, such a unclear reference to just “GPL” would be GPL-1.0-or-later 

I think this is where your point is spot on and confirms my memory of the various discussions:

> I agree that one can use GPL-1.0-or-later in this case well (which was
> discussed down thread), but I also agree with the argument (also downthread)
> that there is no *requirement* to include GPL-1.0 in the mix.  The text of
> the COPYING file (i.e., GPLv2) is clear on this point, if we have code that
> does "not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any
> version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."
> 
> Jilayne and I did a pretty deep dive on this question of the 'no version
> number specified' and I think our discussions made us sure that it does
> *not* mean GPL-2.0-only, because of the text above.  I checked with
> Fontana too and he agrees with this as well.

I think what I was looking for here, was confirmation as to whether we want to do the “literal” GPL-1.0-or-later option that the license provides for, or trigger the option to “choose any version” and go with GPL-2.0-or-later for consistency of v2 across the kernel and for other reasons I believe you raised regarding GPL-1.0

Thoughts?


thanks,
Jilayne

> On May 21, 2019, at 11:24 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn@ebb.org> wrote:
> 
> J Lovejoy wrote:
>> 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
> 
>> This 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 agree that one can use GPL-1.0-or-later in this case well (which was
> discussed down thread), but I also agree with the argument (also downthread)
> that there is no *requirement* to include GPL-1.0 in the mix.  The text of
> the COPYING file (i.e., GPLv2) is clear on this point, if we have code that
> does "not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any
> version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."
> 
> Jilayne and I did a pretty deep dive on this question of the 'no version
> number specified' and I think our discussions made us sure that it does
> *not* mean GPL-2.0-only, because of the text above.  I checked with
> Fontana too and he agrees with this as well.
> 
> Meta note: I've got a hectic week so I am not available to look at
> any Thomas' patch sets (and the threads they're generating) until this weekend,
> but I've set aside time on this Sunday morning for it.  Looking forward to it!
> 
> --
> Bradley M. Kuhn
> 
> Pls. support the charity where I work, Software Freedom Conservancy:
> https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/