Re: setproctitle()

[Eric Blake]

On 05/04/2010 09:53 AM, Peter Seebach wrote:
> In message <address@hidden>, "Alfred M. Szmidt" writes:
>> If the FSF is the copyright holder, then there is no (legal) need to
>> ask the original author about permission to relicense the work.  It
>> might be a nice thing to do, but if the original author says no for
>> some reason, the FSF can still relicense the work; they are the
>> copyright holders.

Yes, from the FSF side of things, having the FSF own the copyright is
handy for upgrading licenses; we used this feature to upgrade some files
from GPLv2 to GPLv3 without having to ask the original authors.  But for
downgrading, we tend to view it as a last-ditch escape clause; we prefer
to first ask the original author for permission; and if the original
author consents, then it was the author and not the FSF doing the
license relaxation.  It is only because of the fact that the original
author is not always available that the FSF reserves the right to change
a license itself.  You can search the gnulib list archives for examples
of asking original authors for permission to relax licenses (most
recently, we relaxed several replacement header licenses this month).

> 
> And for that matter, it seems that at that point, the original author
> doesn't have the right to just keep a copy under the terms under which
> they intended to release it...  Thus the issue.  (It turns out that
> GPLv3 is pretty deeply problematic for me; it turns out that I'd rather
> just let people like TiVO play stupid games than have to deal with v3.)

Part of the papers that you sign when assigning copyright to the FSF is
a grant-back clause (1.d), which states that the FSF grants back to you,
as the original author, the right to use your contributions outside of
FSF control as you see fit.  Although I'm not a lawyer, I read this to
mean that you, as author, can relax the license externally at your own
will (although that only covers the legal aspects; there are still the
moral aspects to consider, particularly if you abuse the grant-back
clause to release things under a license incompatible with LGPL).  And
even if the FSF does someday choose to upgrade the license on your
contribution after the fact, anyone that wants it under the old license
can use version control to get back at the state of your contribution
prior to the license change.

But all of this talk of license relaxation is somewhat pointless - if
you release it under LGPLv2+ in the first place, and ask that it be
included in gnulib under that license, then it already meets your needs
and we don't have to relax anything after the fact.  If you are worried
that everything in gnulib is GPLv3, you are mistaken.  We already do
have, and continue to add, modules under LGPLv2+.  But do note that we
request the v2+, because we rely on that explicit 'or later' clause in
order to allow use of your module in a GPLv3 project; what we cannot
accept is code under LPGLv2-only.

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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