Re: Final text of GPL v3 (original) (raw)

On Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 10:27:52AM +0100, Gervase Markham wrote:

It certainly addresses the problem. Let's look at the two possibilities:

Before: GPL (either explicitly or implicitly): you can do X Restriction: you can't do X

Result - conflict and confusion; non-redistributable code

After: GPL (either explicitly or implicitly): you can do X GPL: If I say you can't do X, you can ignore me Restriction: you can't do X

Result - the license is consistent, although it has one part which nullifies another part. This is similar to clauses of the form "The previous part of this clause does not apply if you are wearing blue underwear".

If you (in your example) license under GPLv3 + restriction, then by picking GPLv3 you are giving me, the recipient of the code, permission to remove the restriction. If you didn't want to give me that permission, you shouldn't have used GPLv3 - just as if you didn't want to give me permission to link my code with the Affero GPL (to take one example of many), you shouldn't have used GPLv3.

Um, no. "You shouldn't have used GPLv3" doesn't have any legal force to resolve the inconsistency. If I license my work under the GPLv3, I as the copyright holder can still modify the terms of my code's license however I damn well want, regardless of what the GPLv3 itself says about whether that is permissible, because the GPLv3 is not binding on me the copyright holder.

If I go to the effort of writing

This program is Free Software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 as
published by the Free Software Foundation, with the exception that the
prohibition in section 7 of the license on additional restrictions does
not apply and the permission in section 13 is not granted.

then I have explicitly addressed the clause in GPLv3 which purports to prohibit additional restrictions. Which statement is going to take precedence? At best I've created a lawyer bomb because my intentions are not clear; at worst I've succeeded in licensing my code in a manner that's incompatible with the GPLv3. But that's exactly the same problem that we had with GPLv2, so what was the point of adding this clause?

-- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/

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