Updating from LGPL 2 to LGPL 3

[Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals]

2010/8/8 Henrik Johansson <dahankzter at gmail.com>:
> I remember some such discussion about the kernel license a while back
> and that seemed to be the consensus.

The problem with Linux's (kernel) license is that it is "GPL version
2", not "GPL version 2 *or later*" (like most project, and in which
case no permission is required from anyone to use/distribute it as
GPLv3+, since it already is).

Because the license doesn't include the "or later" fragment,
permission from all copyright holders is required to change the
license. Now the big problem is that many people who contributed to
the Linux kernel are no longer reachable to give their consent to the
change.

I've recently read somewhere that now Linus is encouraging new
contributors to include a sentence in their license header authorizing
either himself or another prominent kernel developer (at their choice)
to change the license to a later GPL version, to reduce this problem
for new code changes.

I hope this helps. And, IANAL.

Cheers,

-- 
Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals (RainCT)
Free Software Developer       363DEAE3