On 15/11/11 18:44, Russ Allbery wrote: > Ximin Luo <infini...@gmx.com> writes: > >> GPL2+ is not a license, it is a license specification - a description of >> what licenses apply to the materials in question, just like the string >> "GPL or BSD". FSF publishes no such license called "GPL2+". > > I think Jakub is right: it's a different license. GPL-2 allows you to > publish your changes under exactly the GPL version 2. GPL-2+ allows you > to publish your changes under the GPL version 2 or any later version. The > two licenses grant you *different rights*, and hence are different > licenses, just as if one of them said that you had to publish a copyright > notice and the other one didn't. One of them allows you to relicense; the > other one doesn't. >
The issue isn't whether they're the same license, it's whether they can be
incorporated into the same License: paragraph.
As I pointed out already, your argument is inconsistent - "MPL or GPL or LGPL"
allows relicensing as well, but DEP5 requires that we group together the uses
of each component MPL, GPL, LGPL, separately. Why treat "GPL2+" differently?
It's logically equivalent to "GPL2 or GPL3 or GPL4 or GPL5 ....".[1]
Inconsistency in a specification to be used for machine-parsing is a big no-no.
Why do you think separate paragraphs for GPL2 and GPL2+ is a good idea? Just as
with "MPL or GPL or LGPL", the relicensing is implicit in the "or" and implicit
in the "+".
Going back to the previous example, this sort of text:
| This program is free software; you can redistribute it
| and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
| Public License as published by the Free Software
| Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
| opinion) any later version.
should not be in the License: paragraph. It is not a summary of GPL2, nor does
it represent what it says, and it is *not* a license. Proper licenses describe
conditions for doing things to an *unspecified* set of subject materials ("The
Software" or equiv in legalese); by contrast, the above text is preamble
describing which licenses apply to which particular materials, which would
normally be on a file header. Sometimes these things are merged, as is the case
with shorter licenses, but with legally-written license documents, they are
separated.
Come to think of it, iirc DEP5 endorses this as an example, which is actually
incorrect, and possibly the source of your position.
X
[1] except that we are not required to provide the full text of the later
versions, but we don't do this anyway
> Also, from the ftpmaster perspective, ftpmaster wants the actual text of
> the upstream license included in the copyright file, and if there are
> multiple different texts, there should all appear.
>
>> I'll bring this up with debian-policy as well.
>
> With my Policy hat on, I'd tell you the same thing, but we can certainly
> discuss that there if you think my analysis is wrong.
>
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