Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of Brutus - Collaboration Framework - savannah.nongnu.org

[Sylvain Beucler]

> > Yes, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#VersionTwoOrLater
> > adresses some of your concerns. Incidentally, v2only projects are not
> > accepted at Savannah, but that will not keep me from discussing that
> > fact :)
> 
> Good ;-) 
> 
> My concerns are more in the direction of "what if V3 is a BSD type
> license"? That would effectively negate the desired effect of V2 (and my
> primary reason for using V2), namely that any derived work must be free
> as well.
> 
> I am very willing to license Brutus under the "V2 or later" clause, if I
> could be assured that any later version will force derived works to be
> free as well.

"V2 or later" requires to trust the FSF to a certain degree. Maybe you don't.

As far as I am concerned, when I see:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#WhatIsCopyleft (What is Copyleft?)
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html (Why you shouldn't use the 
Library GPL for your next library)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-copyleft.html (Why Copyleft?)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html (Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/x.html (The X Window's Trap)
I begin to be fairly confident that copyleft is one of the core values of the 
FSF.

And if I still find that it is not a serious guarantee, the GPL
contains: "9.  The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or
new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new
versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may
differ in detail to address new problems or concerns."

Given that copyleft is what makes the GPL what it is, a BSD-like GPLv3
would be legally questionnable.


I do not have much information on GPLv3. However, you may be
interested in having a look at the Affero GPL; a description is here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses,
and the license available is http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html. Affero
GPL adresses a problem of GPLv2, and the FSF plans to do the same in
GPLv3.

-- 
Sylvain