Re: [gentoo-dev] GPL-2 vs GPL-2+

Yuri Vasilevski wrote:
[...]
> But at the benefit of having less confusion
> for users about "What the heck is a GPL-2+?" for at last the same period
> of time.
[...]
> So users will have to check what's the
> meaning of that + at the end of GPL-2+, so I think it'll create much
> more confusion than the work of updating packages with each new version
> of GPL.

I think naming them "GPL-2-only" and "GPL-2-or-later" will fix this issue, 
especially if the note mentioned by Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò will be added.
If someone is really interested in knowing more about licenses or GPL he is 
likely to already know the "GPL 2 or later"-thing, while those not interested 
in it anyway are likely not to ask :-)

Maybe the question arising could be:
Did the author say "or later version" or did he say "or any later version" as 
maybe (IANAL) it means only "2.*" without that 'any'
Something like that would make sense as I would want my software to be 
licensed under 2.* since they should be compatible but include "fixes" if a 
passage is unclear or creates problems in one or the other jurisdiction.

Stefan Schweizer wrote:
> I see little benifit in having GPL-2+ but a lot of potential confusion and a
> lot of work for developers to check all pkges.
What about creating a bug depending on some 11600 others for each package 
until it is fixed? (kidding)
I agree on that, benefit would be rather small. IF a user really needs to 
know, wether it is 2.* or also a later version at his opinion it would for 
sure not be a problem to just look it up.

On the other hand, changing the license should, if at all, be done rather at 
once than stepwise to avoid an inconsistend sceme, as I think this is what 
would create confusion...


Ciao,

Daniel

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