Re: How does GPL3 stack up against KHTML/Safari exploitation?

[Florian Weimer]

* Alfred M. Szmidt:

>    > For those who don't remembered the incident, Apple developed its
>    > Safari based on KHTML's work, but Apple only distributed changes
>    > in large patches with little documentation, and refused to allow
>    > KHTML developer to look at the change logs maintained by
>    > Apple. How does GPL3 licence prevent such kind of abuse,
>
>    The GPLv3 does not require detailed changelogs.  The requirements are
>    even below those of the GPLv2.  I suspect that this just reflects
>    reality because most developers (not just Apple) did not pay attention
>    to that part of the GPLv2 anyway.
>
> It also reflects the reality that such a requirement would most
> certaintly make the license a non-free software license: Sorry sir,
> you cannot modify this program without writting extensive
> documentation about what you did;

On the other hand, a piece of software can only be free if the
copyright status is clear.  Documenting who has made changes and may
hold the joint copyright seems to be a necessary for that.