GPLv2 and GPLv3 Coexisting In the Same Project? 116
cyclop writes "I am coding a data analysis application in my laboratory that I would like to release as free (as in freedom) software. Moreover I am going to begin a small OSS game that will be based, in part, on GPLv2 libraries. Problem is: in both cases, I'd like to be able to exchange code both with GPLv2 and (future) GPLv3 projects. I have no particular passions about either license — only thing is I don't want BSD-style 'do anything you want' licensing but a copyleft license. I know that GPLv2 and GPLv3 are not compatible. What can I do? Double licensing? Is there a compatible-with-both license? Adding exceptions? What do you think is the best way to address the GPLv2-to-GPLv3 transition without ending up on one or the other side of the barricade?"
If it's your code do both. (Score:5, Informative)
Can you do both at the same time?? (Score:1, Informative)
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Right. That's why he said "GPL" and not "LGPL". There are a number of libraries that are licensed explicitly under the GPL with the express purpose of requiring that code linked with them be released under the GPL. In the specific case of "GPLv2 only" libraries, this could cause something of a mess with GPLv3 - hopefully the authors can be persuaded to change their license to "GPLv2 or late
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I agree with GPL v2. I'm not sure yet about v3. Who can predict what v4, 5 or 6 might look like? With that clause, I'd have no choice but to agree with it.
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Unfortunately the
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How does that clause help at all with this? You'd still have to change the license of the kernel from "v2 or any later version" to "v3 or any later version", requiring the consent of
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Re:Can you do both at the same time?? (Score:4, Insightful)
My calling people who disagree with the GPLv3 "dumb or dishonest" seems to be a figment of your imagination. I've always insisted that people are free to use whatever license they want for their own code. I haven't called them dumb or dishonest for making that choice. SUN and IBM seem happy with the GPLv3. TiVo is not happy because they won't be able to use GPLv3 code without passing on the four freedoms and Microsoft seems horrified by the GPLv3. The GPLv3 does a better job at enforcing freedom. People or corporations who are against freedom will be against the GPLv3. That's fine. But even if a lot of corporations (besides TiVo and Microsoft) were against the GPLv3 I don't think it would be wise to amend it just to cater to them. Most of our world now seems to cater to the large corporations: the mass media is corporate controlled; and even the Congress and the president (both parties) seem to be controlled by the corporations. Would it be such a sin to have one tiny little corner of the world that does not kowtow to the corporations? Free software should not be neutered in order to cater to the whims of people who don't want software to be free. No license or contract can force someone to break the law. If you distrust the FSF so much then you shouldn't use the "any later version" clause in your licenses. That's fine. That's your choice. If you are part of a massive project involving many developers then license upgrades will be difficult, perhaps even impossible. I chose to trust the FSF so I kept the "any later version" clause when I licensed my software. That is my choice. I gave up some control in exchange for an easier upgrade path especially for other people who might want to use some of my code in a new project.
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Lol.. This wasn't FUD and it wasn't ever debunked. The language dealing with it was dropped from the license during one of the draft revisions. You need to slow down a little and change that to "this has been rewritten and isn't a concern any more".
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No it can't.
You either violated someone else's copyright when you distributed their code, or you didn't. End of story. If you distribute some "GPLv2 or later" code, and 20 years later someone else then decides to rely on the terms of GPLv99 for their copyright authorization to redistribute, that has absolutely no affect on you.
if they did and I did have exclusive patent licenses, I'd be screwed.
It depends on what you mean by "screwed".
For starters
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Or where I own a company that bases a project on non GPL code. Some developer comes along
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The fact that it was GPL code can't hurt you. You can always decline the GPL and deal with it is simple unlicensed code. Which of course is infringement, and whether it came from Microsoft or a GPL project or anyone else is irrelevant.
It GPL or not, it comes down to four possibilities:
(1) don't copy the code (too late in your example)
(2) copy the code and deal the Microsoft/GPL/whatever license
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Incidentally, TiVo's use is NOT a "loophole". Back when GPLv2 was written, Stallman only seemed to care about how software was used. Now GPLv3 is trying to restrict people's use of
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The TiVO hardware is compatible with the GPLv3 according to Jim Barton, the CTO of TiVO who said in an ACM article [acmqueue.com]:
Even existing TiVos could be made GPLv3 compliant if the TiVo corpor
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The GPL v2 says that if you distribute an executable, you must supply the source code for that executable. You cannot distribute an executable for some office application and supply source adequate for compiling some DIFFERENT executable (source sufficient to compile a Tic-Tac-Toe program for example). You cannot distribute an executable for some Cray application and supply source for a DIFFERENT executable (source sufficient to compile an equiv
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I have hear this ti
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It's a bit easier to write another check than to write another software project.
Mainly the weirdness is due to the changed way the GPL is used these days tho. Originally the FSF was the sole copyright holder to many of the GPL licensed projects (and they require copyright assignment on included code); for them to release code and giving second-hand recepients the option to update the license without the cooperation of middle-men makes perfect sense.
For other projects requiring cop
True, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Numerous developers see the GPL licensing issues as a lot more complex than they actually are... but that does not change the fact that there are issues to consider.
Easy example: I wanted to use some custom GUI components to enhance the look of an app, but have no experience in that realm, and no time or inclination to get experienced. It took me a week of sampling packages from proprietary vendors to choose one. Then another week to decide whether to pay the low price for the right to redistribute, or the high price to actually have the code & rights to modify. Easy. What do I want? how important is access to the code? Pay. Done.
Doing the same thing with GPL code would have required me to review licenses already involved in my project, and my future plans for the project (would I have to excise large portions of code if my business model needs to change to be successful... or if someone wants to purchase my already successful company and change the business model?).
Anyhow, the GPL is very good at what it does, protecting code. But your simple statement that sums up the issues actually becomes complex in practice.
Regards.
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As to not being able to use open source licensed code for your business or having it impact your business model I think that it mostly a FUD issue. It's my experience that the license doesn't make much difference to your
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Naturally, this fails or at least becomes more complicated if you are drawing from a piece with multiple
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I did pay the code fee in addition to the stan
At your option... (Score:2)
This clause is not part of the license -- it's just wording that the FSF recommends you use when describing the licensing of your software. You can also explicitly say
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Dude (article poster), go ask Eben Moglen [wikipedia.org], or better yet, get some *free* advice from his company/association/whatever: The Software freedom law center [softwarefreedom.org].
Slashdot is good for general ideas (like links above), just don't base a project/life decision on comments made by you know who-where-how/old posters.
Good luck.
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That's prolly the best way, license it "GPL 2 or later".
-uso.
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I can't see how, even if all is your code, you could distinguish multiple licenses inside the same program.
GPLv2 says that in order for a program to legaly have some GPLv2 code, the entire program must be under GPLv2. GPLv3 says the exact same thing, so both can't coexist legaly inside the same program, even if you wrote it all.
It can be both in the sense you can say: Here is two licenses: GPLv2 and GPLv3. I offer my code on either license. You just pick one. Thus, the mutual incompability never comes into play.
However, you are right that the code is not covered by both licenses as once. Thus, for code to be dual licensed, all the code it derives from must be available dual-licensed, too. In other words, choosing the dual license makes less code available to you for inclusion than picking either one. On the other hand, it is ea
GPL 2 or later (Score:1, Informative)
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I thought of the standard clause but it always puzzled me. Who chooses what licence is actually in use? What does "any later version" mean? What if someone breaks only one of the multiple versions of the license? Let's say, if someone TiVO-izes my "GPLv2 or any later" code, that's perfectly fine for me (that thinks GPLv2 is mostly fine), but that could be NOT fine at all for some contributor. What happens in this case?
Re:GPL 2 or later (Score:4, Informative)
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I thought of the standard clause but it always puzzled me. Who chooses what licence is actually in use? What does "any later version" mean? What if someone breaks only one of the multiple versions of the license? Let's say, if someone TiVO-izes my "GPLv2 or any later" code, that's perfectly fine for me (that thinks GPLv2 is mostly fine), but that could be NOT fine at all for some contributor. What happens in this case?
In that case the contributor would have to re-release the code plus his changes entirely under the GPLv3 (Assuming the original release included the "or any subsequent version" clause.) Or, the contributor could choose not to release his contributions. You do not choose which license is in use until you release the code yourself. The original releaser may limit the options you have for doing this, e.g. GPLv2 or any subsequent version, GPLv2 only, etc.
The GPL gives you the freedom to do whatever you want
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"GPLv2 or any later version"means that the author intends to allow the licensee to take advantage of any additional freedoms added in future versions of the GPL. Since the licensee may choose whatever version of the license is most favorable to the freedoms he wants to use, it is not possible to force additional restrictions on the license
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I th
Probably not as big an issue as you think (Score:5, Informative)
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Also, most of the code that looks like that, when new versions are released, will begin to say "GPLv3 or later". If you're still relying on GPLv2, you'll be stuck at the license-fork point and won't be able to use new features in that code.
I don't release any of my code with the "or later" bit, because I don't kn
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That plan is great until you start accepting code from other people. There will be new GPL revisions periodically, and you don't want your project to be stuck in the position that Linux is in. At very least, I'd suggest requiring that contributors allow you to relicense their code to future versions of the GPL at your discretion.
GPLv3: licensing by proxy (Score:4, Informative)
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It would be more properly stated that all code that EXPLICITLY says "GPLv2 or later" permits use with future versions of the GPL. However, whether most code says this or not, I wouldn't speculate.
Given that most developers seem to copy the boilerplate at the end of GPLv2 that uses the "any later version" wording (Google gives a million hits [google.com]), I'd speculate yes.
Oh, and Linux doesn't have the "or later" bit in it, either.
The license of Linux [kernel.org] is GPLv2 (only). It also has an explicit statement, for the avoidance of doubt, that a program's use of syscalls provided by Linux does not make the program a derivative work of Linux. Therefore, a GPLv3 GNOME operating environment can run just fine atop a GPLv2 Linux.
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Where do I suggest that? The question was being asked of GPLv2 libraries and I specifically said this would allow you to let others deal with the libraries.
That said, I really don't see why not. GPLv2 technically doesn't require you to redistribute under GPLv2, it requires you to allow those you distribute to all the same freedoms they would have under GPLv2. IANAL but as far as I can tell,
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I have a feeling this is going to cause problems once the GPLv3 is out and third parties get confused about improperly marked derived code.
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'I have a feeling this is going to cause problems once the GPLv3 is out and third parties get confused about improperly marked derived code.'
I doubt it will cause that much trouble. I think it is reasonably safe to assume that a GPLv2 or later project consists of GPLv
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Lets say I make a media player. It is released under GPLv2 only. You make a front end for it and a few codecs that work with my media player only and release them under the GPLv2 or later. Technically, it is v2 only because your work is a derived work from mine. When you give up and someone else takes your code and switched it to GPLv3 in an attempt to
Just use GPLv2 (Score:5, Informative)
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If that is true of GPLv3, you might be able to go backwards since GPLv3 doesn't grant additional rights and only imposes additional restrictions.
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If you mean adding GPLv3 code to a GPLv4 project, that's already allowed; it's just optional. Anybody can choose to release their code as GPLv3 or later just as much code has already been released as GPLv2 or later.
If you're asking why they're making the or later part optional instead of mandatory, that's probably
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Re:Just use GPLv2 (Score:5, Informative)
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The original poster said "I have no particular passions about either license". So you change the license in the formerly gplv2 code, then compile it and ship your gplv3 binary with it. Problem solved.
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GPLv2 or later (Score:3, Informative)
That allows you to mix any variation of your code, GPLv2-or-later code and/or GPLv3 code in a GPLv3 project.
It also allows you to use your code with those relatively few projects that are 'GPLv2 only'(such as the Linux kernel) and/or GPLv2-or-later code in a GPLv2-only project.
That's about as compatible as you'll get with those three flavours of GPL. No license you pick will allow you to mix 'GPLv2 only' code with GPLv3 code.
How many binaries involved? (Score:4, Insightful)
OR... you can use Trolltech's licensing scheme (OSS projects get to use it free, commercial ones have to pay up licensing fees).
I like either GPL version, but if you're not too hung-up on using GPL, http://www.opensource.org/ [opensource.org] has a whole array of open-source offically-sanctioned licensing - one of those may fit your needs better. (cue RMS fans w/ mod points stampeding in protest, but seriously; if it does the job, use it).
The beauty of this is, it's all up to you how you want to handle it.
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So... you're suggesting that he solve his GPL version compatibility problem by choosing some other license that's potentially incompatible with all versions of the GPL? Somehow I don't think that's going to help.
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Use the FSF's suggestion (Score:1, Redundant)
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
John
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What misinformation? (Score:3, Insightful)
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If you do run into v2 only code..... (Score:1)
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So for the libraries under LGPL link them to code yo
Ask the FSF (Score:1, Informative)
http://gplv3.fsf.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ_Update [fsf.org]
You can check the questions already on it to find if yours is answered, and if not, add your question to it. I added a couple of questions and within a couple of days, someone had merged them into one and answered it.
Closed Source (Score:4, Funny)
Just become a closed source developer. That way you won't be on either side of the GPL fence. And you could (nay should) add annoying DRM to your software.
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Simply ignore it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pedantry has no place in this kind of thing.
Re:Simply ignore it. - Back to the bat cave (Score:4, Interesting)
Holy cow, I flipped out for a minute when I saw this. My dander went up and I felt the urge to fight for freedom everywhere and punish the blasphemer. Ignore the license? What the heck? How evil! How horrid! Breaking the license is a capital offense!
In my zeal to fight for the common good I had to consider for a moment who might be hurt and then my dander wilted. I have never personally known anyone who would be offended if their GPL2 code was used in a project by someone trying to use a slightly different license. Not one. I can't rule out the possibility but in the absolute worse case scenario you get a nasty letter that says "stop misusing my code" and you pull it and ask someone else to fill in the blank.
Back to the bat cave Robin, there is no evil here.
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I'm sticking with GPL v2 only on my projects, although I've been careful to keep in contact with people who have submitted code, so we can change to GPL v3 if we decide we like the final version.
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You can always add permissions for your own code. You can say "You have permission to redistribute this under the GPLv2 and you have permission to redistribute this on Tuesdays".
-
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Cool, I'll just ship my proprietary code with GPL code, and if someone complains I'll call it a "bundle" and let the licenses exist on their own, GPL license for the GPL code and "(c) All rights reserved" for mine. Oh wait, that's not how the GPL works? Unless there's the "and later" clause, GPLv3 has absolutely nothing to do with GPLv2 and vice versa. It's completely different licenses as far
Earth to Stallman: WHAT ABOUT LIBRARIES? (Score:2)
SO what about libraries that have been released under the GPL rather than the LGPL? Libraries are not "programs" but they are always, no exception, "linked, merged, or combined". What happens then?
Be careful and keep your options open. (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the problems you will face. If you license under GPL version 2 or later then you can't incorporate code that is licensed under version 3 (but not version 2) into your project (others here seem to imply that you can) until you move up to version 3 yourself. Basically you need to think of it this way, in order to use other people's code in your project your license has to be a subset of their license. In order for others to use your code their license has to be a subset of yours. Here is what I would recommend:
As for allowing others to use your code, you have some options with that as well:
I think this about as comprehensive of a guide as I can give you. I'm not a lawyer or a representative of the Free Software Foundation and my statements above are just opinion and not to be taken as legal advice. I just know what I know and am passing that knowledge on.
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Thanks for advice. Just a thing is obscure:
You can dual license, or multi-license specific files in your project so that they are compatible with other licenses you want them to be usable with, just don't forget to remove the other licenses from any files that you include someone else's GPL code in.
For what reason should I remove the other licenses from files where I include other GPL code? If it's N-licensed, and one of these licenses is GPL, technically I'm merging GPL code with GPL code, so where'
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For what reason should I remove the other licenses from files where I include other GPL code? If it's N-licensed, and one of these licenses is GPL, technically I'm merging GPL code with GPL code, so where's the problem (assuming it's the same GPL version, of course)?
Because when you are listing licenses at the top of a file you are in essence saying that all the code in that file can be used under any of those licenses and you cannot (without permission) re-license someone else's GPL code under a different license, which would be the effect of what you would be doing by including their code in a file with licenses other than GPL.
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Let's say your file says the equivalent of "You may use this file under the terms of the GPL (v2 or later), LGPL or MPL, at your option". (Mozilla source is triple-licensed like this, I believe).
Then you want to add code from somebody else's project to your file. Their file says "You may use this file under the terms of the GPL v2".
When you add their code to your file, if you don't change the licensing at the start of your file, and you publish the new version, you are telling
my way (Score:2, Interesting)
As i said, i have no idea if thats fair or just but im beginn
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Most cameras are mass storage devices. If you can't get them to work with Linux, I do not think the problem is Linux or the computer or the camera.
Or did you mean a webcam? That isn't a problem either. See http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=3
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RTFL (Score:2, Informative)
You could do GPLv2 and add a clause to make it compatible with GPLv3. I'm not sure what that clause would say, but I think you can do that.
The wording suggested by the FSF for such a clause has been at the bottom of GPLv2 [gnu.org] for years:
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
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