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

On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 23:21:30 +0100 Anthony W. Youngman wrote:

This date is NOT arbitrary. It is AFTER this clause was first discussed.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, many jurisdictions implicitly or explicitly forbid retro-activeness. Without this date, there's a good chance the clause would be declared legally invalid.

I cannot understand how it could be retroactive.

Since the GNU GPL v3 has been released on 29 June 2007, no work has been licensed under its terms prior to 29 June 2007, and hence no provision can be retroactive. A company which entered in a discriminatory agreement prior to 28 March 2007, will find out that now is not allowed to distribute GPLv3ed works. What's retroactive about this?

If a company entered prior to 1989 into a weird agreement forbidding the distribution of source code, would we say that GPL sections that mandate availability of source are retroactive?

See also my comment: http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/summarydecision.html?filename=%3C%&id=3227

The usual disclaimers: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP, IANAENS.

-- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4

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