Two GPL Questions

[Justin Wells]

On Sun, Dec 09, 2001 at 08:35:37PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:

> The downside risk is, I suppose, the possibility that FSF might make GPL
> v. 3 do something radically permissive, e.g., consist of BSD terms.

I trust the current board of the FSF, etc., the real downside is the 
possibility that in the future the FSF will manifestly change in its
nature. 

One possible reason would be change in personell over time -- people 
do get old, and the new crop may not agree with the old crop.

Another possibility is the FSF gets into a nasty legal conflict with 
some entity, loses the lawsuit, and huge damages are awarded to the
other party. The FSF is unable to pay, and loses all its intellectual
property to its adversary.

Its adversarity, say Microsoft Corp., has different ideas about how
the GPL v3 should be worded... for example, allowing Microsoft (and
only Microsoft) to incorporate all GPL'd software into Windows.

Anyone care to comment on what would prevent this doomsday scenario?

Justin

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