[rfc] change copyright text to gplv2 or v3

Vincent Ladeuil v.ladeuil+lp at free.fr
Sat Oct 13 17:16:01 BST 2007


>>>>> "martin" == Martin Pool <mbp at canonical.com> writes:

    martin> I'd like to change the standard copyright across
    martin> Bazaar source files to licence them under either the
    martin> gplv2 or v3, rather than "v2 or later."  This doesn't
    martin> mean we can't or won't update it if and when gplv4
    martin> ever comes out.  I think after seeing the gplv3
    martin> process, and the substantial changes compared to v2,
    martin> it makes sense to specifically consider updates,
    martin> rather than basically give a blank cheque for a
    martin> licence that does not yet exist.

I'm personally happy to give a blank cheque to FSF GPL
maintainers, so my vote is for GPL v3 or later.

The rationale being that I trust their legal competences and if
I'm wrong, a fork will always be possible.

So far, the benefits of the GPL for me and the IT industry (imho)
are so huge that I can't imagine a future version going in a
direction that will endanger the existing code base (bzr
included).

Another argument being that I'm against the proliferation of
licenses. The license zoo is already pretty complicated to
analyze, but the dominant one is the GPL. I'm not especially a
big fan of following the dominant, but in that case, that
perfectly fits my beliefs.

   Vincent

P.S.: As a groklaw reader, I'm still amazed that the GPL V3 came
just before the first suit involving patents targeting free
software was filed... Talk about forward thinking...



More information about the bazaar mailing list