Re: [Denemo-devel] Re: denemo and GPLv3

[Nils Gey]

I'm doing investigations again.
This is still not about the content or meaning of the gpl3 but about the 
procedure itself:

-Very important is the string in GPL2 "any later version". 

-GPL3 and GPL2 are incompatible. If there is a gpl2-lib Denemo uses which does 
NOT use the "any later version" clause then we can't use it if we are going to 
use GPL3. This is the technically most critical point and needs to be cleared 
first. I am _not_ fully against a GPL3 switch but I find it very important to 
check if GPL3 is still compatible with our current dependencies.

-If it turns out that Denemo was indeed historically released as "GPLv2 or any 
later version" then we don't need to ask anybody because its only a name 
change. If "later versions" is not the case all copyright holders need to be 
asked for permission because its a switch to an incompatible(!) license.

-A quick crawl through all Denemo files did reveal that the "COPYING" file 
seems to be the template version. This is a bad thing because it is not clear 
if we use "any later version" or not, because its still there in its 
suggestion/template form: 
"[...] (at your option) any later version.[...]"

There seem to be only four source files directly created by denemo which have a 
license header at all, but all these four use the unaltered template version, 
that means no one ever has made the decision to use "any later version" or not.
./include/denemo/denemo_api.h
./include/denemo/denemo_types.h
./src/pitchrecog.c
./src/lyparser.h

-If "any later version" is applied to Denemos license it means the license 
automatically upgrades to the next available GPL once its released (at least 
that is what the folks in #gnu said). I am very alerted by this, it means we 
are at the mercy of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). This is not the badest 
thing to happen, but we don't have control over our own license in this case. 
There is no meta-license that defines what the core GPL is, so its unlikely but 
technically possible that a gpl4 or gpl5 will be of dislike to the Denemo 
developers but the software/license automatically upgrades.

Next steps:
-Check if the GPL3 is worth it and rely on our own adjudgement
-Make clear if Denemo uses the "or any later version" clause and change the 
files according to this


I'm not trying to get in the way of something but licenses are a core component 
of free software and should no be taken lightly 

Nils



On Wed, 05 May 2010 22:50:50 +0100
Richard Shann <address@hidden> wrote:

> On Wed, 2010-05-05 at 23:19 +0200, Nils Gey wrote:
> > I am still unsure about it.
> > It is not clear
> I think that must be so, othewise no significant projects could switch.
> >  if we are allowed to change it without getting permission from the 
> > original authors and contributers.
> > 
> > But more important: GPL2 still works for us.
> It does nothing for us until someone tries to abuse Denemo in some way,
> then we find out if it was carefully written or there were loopholes.
> >  Why should we change a running system?
> Because others take more interest and know more about it?
> Richard
> 
> > 
> > Nils
> > 
> > On Wed, 05 May 2010 14:49:36 +0100
> > Richard Shann <address@hidden> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 23:30 +0000, Karl Berry wrote:
> > > > Hi everyone -- did we discuss upgrading denemo to GPLv3-or-later?  I
> > > > belatedly noticed the new release was still GPLv2, it seemed.  Any
> > > > problems with switching next time?
> > > I posted this email on to denemo-devel, but apart from some emails about
> > > whether GPLv3 is a good thing nothing has happened. Looking around the
> > > denemo code, it looks like what you would do is replace the file COPYING
> > > with a new one (I expect there is a correct place to get it from...).
> > > If that is right and no-one objects I will do that.
> > > Richard
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Denemo-devel mailing list
> > > address@hidden
> > > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/denemo-devel
> > > 
>