> On Jun 1, 2021, at 11:08 AM, Jason Merrill via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 10:52 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier <h...@mimosa.com> wrote:
>
>> | From: Mark Wielaard <m...@klomp.org>
>>
>> | This seems a pretty bad policy to be honest.
>> | Why was there no public discussion on this?
>>
>> Agreed. I also agree with the rest of Mark's message.
>>
>> (Note: I haven't contributed to GCC but I have contributed to other
>> copylefted code bases.)
>>
>> It is important that the pool be trustable. A tall order, but
>> solvable, I think.
>>
>> Two pools (FSF for old stuff, something else, for new stuff if the
>> contributor prefers) should be quite managable.
>>
>> This would allow, for example, moving to an updated copyleft if the
>> two pools agreed. It is important that the governance of the pool be
>> trustable.
>>
>> We've trusted the FSF and now some have qualms. A second pool would
>> be a check on the power of the first pool.
>>
>> Individual unassigned copyright pretty much guarantees that the
>> copyright terms can never be changed. I don't think that that is
>> optimal.
>>
>
> GCC's license is "GPL version 3 or later", so if there ever needed to be a
> GPL v4, we could move to it without needing permission from anyone.
I don't think that is what the license says. It says:
GCC 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 3, or (at your option)
any later version.
To me that means the recipient of the software can relicense it under a later
license. It doesn't say to me that the original distribution can do so.
paul
