Nuking "or later" in the sources

[Rich Felker]

On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 07:48:21PM +0100, Andy Green wrote:
> Rich Felker wrote:
> 
> > When you receive a modified version of your code from Busybox, it is a
> > derived work with multiple copyright holders. The party who prepared
> > and distributed this derived work is not required to license it under
> > all versions of GPL since you told them (when you licensed your
> > original work under "GPL v2 or later") that they can pick, at their
> > option, either GPL v2 or any later version. They picked v2. Thus the
> > derived work is under GPL v2 only.
> 
> I think it's a good move if busybox goes GPL 2 only, but understanding 
> the explanation above, is it then the plan to remove the "or later" 
> language from the individual source files at the time of the license 
> change?  It seems to me if this is not done, the recipient can with some 
> justification point at the files you gave him (that continue to say GPL 
> 2 "or later"), say that he wants to modify under GPL 3 and demand 
> signing keys accordingly.

My view is that the ability to demand keys is equal with v2 or v3,
making it a non-issue. However, even if your view is the other way on
this issue, it's still not an issue. Anyone receiving a copy of the
code under "v2 or later" may CHOOSE which version of the license they
want to follow. A vendor making DRM binaries would simply choose to
use v2 and release their derived work under GPL v2 only. The person
who receives it from this vendor CANNOT say "wait this is v2 or later
therefore you must follow v3 and give me keys!!" That completely
defies all shreds of logic. This person was given the copy of the
program using the license granted by GPL v2, not GPL v3. The fact that
a different version of the program licensed under GPL v3 exists
somewhere else is irrelevant.

Shouldn't a passing grade in logic be a prerequisite for participating
in license threads, BTW?

> Further, is it not the case that anyone who has any GPL2 "or later" 
> project plans to "distribute under the terms of GPL 2" should make sure 
> he does the same thing?  Not talking about removing copyright notices 
> just making sure that each file contains the actual terms of that 
> distribution action (which otherwise is probably not committed to 
> writing anywhere...)

Huh?

Rich