Some projects are licensed under GPL 2 "or, at your option, any later version". A project that is licensed under GPL 2 would require the approval of every contributor to be relicensed under GPL 3. Even a fork to GPL 3 would not be allowed without the consent of everyone involved. A project that is licensed under GPL 2+ can be converted en masse to GPL 3, but not piecemeal. For example, if Drupal is under GPL 2+ then Dries could one day declare "OK, we're now GPL 3+!", and it would be so. He would have to if anyone sent in a patch under GPL 3+, in fact. If he didn't, someone could fork it under GPL 3+ but then the fork could not cross-pollenate with the original Drupal. My reading of RMS' statement (and someone correct *me* if I'm wrong) is that GPL 3 would allow for "unmodifiable" "download the code here" functions, similar to how the GNU Free Documentation License allows for unremovable non-content stuff like colophons <sp>. That's only an option for the developer, though, and not required. That would affect Drupal only if it's currenly licensed under GPL 2+ *and* Dries decided to move to GPL 3. (If it's currently GPL 2, then it's locked on GPL 2 pretty much forever.) I don't know off hand if Drupal is under GPL 2 or GPL 2+, so I don't know which would apply to us. Dries? --Larry Garfield
Please correct me if I am wrong. If existing codes of a project are licensed under GPL 2, and if someone from that project wants to license the codes with GPL 3 that command, EVERY code owner or contributor will need to agree on using the *new* license.
realistically, if at least one ojbects the change, the codes can't be licensed with the new license.
so GPL3 with that command doesn't apply to most of the existing projects. or someone can fork an project and apply the GPL 3 license.
It can be used on any new project though.
On 9/30/05, Karoly Negyesi <karoly@negyesi.net> wrote:
------- Some companies, such as Google, use code covered by GPL to offer their services through the Web. Do you plan to extend GPL 3 copyleft to request code publication in this case too, considering this behavior like a product distribution?
Running a program in a public server is not distribution; it is public use. We're looking at an approach where programs used in this way will have to include a command for the user to download the source for the version that is running.
But this will not apply to all GPL-covered programs, only to programs that already contain such a command. Thus, this change would have no effect on existing software, but developers could activate it in the future.
This is only a tentative plan, because we have not finished studying the matter to be sure it will work.
How would it work?
If you release a program that implements such a command, GPL 3 will require others to keep the command working in their modified versions of the program. -------