Re: how about mutual compatibility between Linux's GPLv2 and GPLv3?

[Al Viro <viro@ftp.linux.org.uk>]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 10:00:22PM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:

> Do you agree that if there's any single contributor who thinks it
> can't be tivoized, and he manages his opinion to prevail in court
> against a copyright holder, then it can't?  That this is the same
> privilege to veto additional permissions that Al Viro has just
> claimed?

You know, I'm rapidly losing any respect for your integrity.  The only
"privelege" claimed is that of not relicensing one's contributions.
_You_ are perfectly welcome to allow distribution of your code under
whatever license you happen to like.  So is anybody else (provided that
they separate their code from that of other contributors).  I cannot
do that to your code.  Neither can Linus.

If Alan sues some company for doing things violating in his opinion his
copyright on some of his code *and* wins it, then it's likely to simplify
later cases of that kind, provided that situation is similar enough to
make the legal arguments used in the first case apply in the later one.

If Joe Random Wanker takes your code (in gcc, kernel, whatever) and starts
distributing it in violation of conditions set in your copyright *and*
you sue him *and* win (which is bloody likely), then further cases of that
kind get somewhat easier to win.  Not much, actually, since there's already
a whole lot of precedents already.

What really gets me is that you know it.  And you know that just about
everyone here knows it.  Yet you keep playing with rather pathetic
attempts of innuendo and misdirection, when it's bloody obvious that
you won't even get a PR win out of the entire mess you've been sustaining
for about a week already (seriously, count postings in these threads).

The first law of holes: when you are in one, stop digging...