From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756702AbXFUJjf (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Jun 2007 05:39:35 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754229AbXFUJj2 (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Jun 2007 05:39:28 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:34479 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754119AbXFUJj1 (ORCPT ); Thu, 21 Jun 2007 05:39:27 -0400 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: how about mutual compatibility between Linux's GPLv2 and GPLv3? From: Alexandre Oliva Organization: Red Hat OS Tools Group Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:39:07 -0300 Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.990 (gnu/linux) 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 Here's an idea that just occurred to me, after all the discussions about motivations, tit-for-tat, authors' wishes and all. If GPLv3 were to have a clause that permitted combination/linking with code under GPLv2, this wouldn't be enough for GPLv3 projects to use Linux code, and it wouldn't be enough for Linux code to use GPLv3 projects. That's because GPLv2 would still demand all code to be licensed under GPLv2, and GPLv3 wouldn't permit this. However, if GPLv3 had a permission to combine/link with code under GPLv2, *and* Linux (and any other projects interested in mutual compatibility) introduced an additional permission to combine/link with code under GPLv3 (or even GPLv3+, constrained by some condition if you will), then: - the kernel Linux could use code from GPLv3 projects - GPLv3 projects could use code from Linux - each copyright holder would still get to enforce the terms s/he chose for his/her own code Does this sound like something that would make sense for your community, so as to maintain/increase cooperation between authors who love GPLv2 and those who love defense for freedom, while respecting each author's not-always-compatible wishes? In other words, does it even make sense for the FSF to consider introducing such a provision in GPLv3, that AFAICT, by itself, would have no effect whatsoever, since an additional permission would be needed for the GPLv2 side? If you were to permit compatibility with GPLv3+ (rather than GPLv3), would you constrain it? Would something like: as long as the later version grants each licensee the same permissions as GPLv2, except for constraining permissions that would enable one licensee to deny other licensees the exercise of the permissions granted by both licenses do, subject to translation to proper legalese (if that's at all possible)? Do you know of any other communities that are like-minded with you, that are sticking with GPLv2, that I could poll about interest in such a provision in GPLv3? Thanks, and sorry for taking your attention away from coding one more time. I hope you find it worth it this time. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}