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Ulrich Mueller posted on Fri, 26 Jan 2018 10:36:49 +0100 as excerpted: |
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> Apparently licensing of the Gentoo repository was changed from GPL-2+ |
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> to GPL-2 (only) in 2002, see for example [1] and [2]. I cannot find any |
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> announcement or discussion about this. |
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> |
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> Who was around in 2002 and still remembers what was the rationale? |
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> |
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> Ulrich |
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> |
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> [1] |
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> https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo/historical.git/commit/skel.ebuild? |
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id=e67af11c176e4dca33846e65c2649aa456de3099 |
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> [2] |
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> https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo/historical.git/commit/header.txt? |
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id=dc4dfe8aa903fb467e648da80f8bc3178411a77a |
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I wasn't around in 2002, but I was researching it by late 2003 and began |
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installing in early 2004, by which point Gentoo was suffering the |
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aftermath of the bitter split with Zynot and DRobbins was pretty much out |
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after having set up the Gentoo Foundation and (what became the) Council. |
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The Zynot side was focused on embedding and trying to take things |
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commercial, while accusing DRobbins of trying to do effectively the same |
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thing but with a(n IIRC) gaming focus. |
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That war has long since been fought and history has played out with |
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Gentoo still around and Zynot... not, so I'll try to avoid inserting |
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opinion /too/ much (tho I'm sure more recent events played out how they |
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did in part due to that history, people around then simply weren't |
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interested in what must have sounded rather similar), but... |
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The switch to GPLv2-only would have been made in the fight for its life |
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that was the Gentoo/Zynot fork, and almost certainly had to do with |
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trying to ensure that the gentoo/x86 tree could not be taken private |
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without community recourse, in an era before GPLv3 existed and there was |
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some uncertainty about what its legal terms were going to be, while those |
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of the GPLv2 were known, it had broad community support, and was at |
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least /somewhat/ legally tested. |
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Of course as we know it's possible for an entity owning copyright on a |
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GPLed work to also sell the rights to use it commercially, with the GPL |
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preventing others from doing the same, and that's what both sides were |
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accusing the other of trying to do, but as we've seen play out in other |
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contexts, the one thing the GPL /does/ do is provide a guarantee that the |
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code as-is will remain free, and community improvements to it without a |
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CLA letting the entity trying to take it proprietary are then disallowed |
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from being used to further that entity's plots. With the uncertainty |
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surrounding the still coming GPLv3 at that point, I believe the intent |
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was to ensure that continued. OTOH, those on the Zynot side would surely |
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argue that the intent was to ensure that Zynot couldn't take it private, |
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while Gentoo/DRobbins could, especially since at the time copyright was |
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assigned to Gentoo. Of course now we have the advantage of looking back |
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it it in history and can see how things turned out, but back then, it was |
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far less clear how things would turn out. |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |
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