Re: [Gnu-arch-users] GNU Arch moves to GPL v3 or later

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

I now see Tom has responded in similar vein; you may find his answer
more intelligible.

Alfred M. Szmidt writes:

 > You clearly do not undertstand the GPL,

You clearly haven't thought through what you're saying.  Let me spell
it out the implications for you.

If "You may redistribute provided that you do so under the conditions
of GPLv2 or later" plus the GPL itself stating "You must cause to be
licensed under the terms of this License" is incompatible with
redistributing under "GPLv2 (only)", then *it is also incompatible
with redistributing under "GPLv3 or later" because the terms of GPLv3
are not the same as those of GPLv2*.

The interpretation that there is some abstract "GPL" whose terms are
being approximated by the versions, so that "GPLv2" and "GPLv3" are in
some sense "the same terms" is untenable, because there is nothing in
the law or the GPL that prevents GPLv4 from being the typical
Microsoft EULA.  (Well, maybe the FSF's articles of incorporation, but
in that case we can back off to a free but non-copyleft license, such
as Larry Rosen's AFL, so that clearly the terms are different.)

In other words, if your interpretation is correct, then distributing
under "GPLv2 or later" is simply a braindamaged way of proliferating
incompatible licenses.  I trust Richard and Eben not to get it *that*
wrong, as I'm sure you do, too.

 >        b. You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that
 >           in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program
 >           or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge
 >           to all third parties under the terms of this License.
 > 
 > `or later' is part of the license terms, much like a the clauses of
 > Bison that allow people to use the output in non-free software.

You have to be more precise than that.  "Or later" is part of the
license terms, but is not part of "this License".  "This License"
refers to the GPL, which is a separate document include in "the
license terms" by reference.