gg wrote:

I've always thought the ".. or later" clause in some gpl wording to be a bit of an odd way to licence something.

While FSF seems to be doing a solid job until now I always worry about future GPLs getting knobbbled the way PGP did.

If GIMP project decides to move to v3 would it be wisest to state specifically v3 rather than some arbitary unknown "or later"? This seems an unnecessary risk.

Without the "or later clause" it wouldn't really be a GNU project which isn't much of an alternative.

In the worst case, if it turns out the GPLv4 will be a terrible licence someone will just have to fork GIMP when we move to GPLv4+ and maintain a GPLv3 version of GIMP.

- Martin

2009/1/14 gg :

I've always thought the ".. or later" clause in some gpl wording to be a bit of an odd way to licence something.

While FSF seems to be doing a solid job until now I always worry about future GPLs getting knobbbled the way PGP did.

If GIMP project decides to move to v3 would it be wisest to state specifically v3 rather than some arbitary unknown "or later"? This seems an unnecessary risk.

Consider that if they hadn't used this language for the current v2 or later license, it would be largely impossible to switch to v3 at this point, as formal permission would need to be gotten from _all_ copyright owners (or parts of GIMP would have to be rewritten).

Henk

gg wrote:

Martin Nordholts wrote:

gg wrote:

Without the "or later clause" it wouldn't really be a GNU project which isn't much of an alternative.

I don't quite follow. In what way does the idea "GNU project" oblige "or later"?

My statement was under the assumption that GNU projects should keep up to date with new versions of the GNU GPL in which case the "or later" cause is necessary to make licence upgrades feasible. My assumption may be wrong but it to me seems reasonable.

- Martin