Open-source database company MySQL has decided to stick to the current General Public License rather than move to an upcoming revision, pending broader industry acceptance. MySQL, one of the most successful commercial ventures to use the GPL, has modified its license terms from 'version 2 or later' to 'version 2' only, according to Kaj Arno, the company's vice president of community.
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Member since:2005-07-07
> Question about this, if a future version of GPL says "all your code are belong to us" (us being any entity that isn't the free public), what recourse would you have, other then to fork the code based on some previous version?
Could you please rephrase this, I don't comprehend it.
It's a play on the old old web phenomenon "All your base are belong to us". The point the poster is making, is you cannot guarantee what a future version of GPL will say. For the sake of argument, how can you be certain that GPL v10 won't include the clause "All your code are belong to us"? The answer is, you don't. There is no certainty there, and that is why people are removing the "or later" clause from licenses.
The only option left for you, would be to fork a pre-"All your code are belong to us" version and license it under something more sane.
Member since:
2006-11-26
The current published version of the gpl is at version 2. gpl2 includes a section that disqualifies users to distribute gpl2 licensed software AND impose additional restrictions on top of what is restricted by gpl2.
The later versions of the gpl (gpl2+n) are expected to impose additional restrictions on top of gpl2. Therefore, it is expected that gpl2 and gpl2+n licensed software are incompatible from a licensing point of view. The point of "or later" is so that the copyright owner of the gpl2 software will give permission to their users to "update" the software license from gpl2 to gpl2+n.
> Of course it's smart to remove the "or later" clause, in fact, it's insane that anyone licenses the code with "or later".
I guess it depends on your situation to include the "or later" clause. If you believe in Stallman's plight for free software and you trust his actions, then it would be smart to include it. If you don't care about the "or later" clause, it would be smart to include it. If you are truly satisfied with gpl2 and want all public derivatives to remain gpl2, then it would be smart to remove the clause
> Question about this, if a future version of GPL says "all your code are belong to us" (us being any entity that isn't the free public), what recourse would you have, other then to fork the code based on some previous version?
Could you please rephrase this, I don't comprehend it.
Edited 2007-01-05 07:56