license categories, was: I'm not supposed to use the ECL v2?

[John Cowan]

Chris Travers scripsit:

> I am not sure what you mean by that.  If you take your work and license it
> under the GPL v2 or later, I can make a derivative work and choose any of
> the following licensing choices:
> 1)  GPL v2 only.
> 2)  GPL v3 only.
> 3)  GPL v2 or later.
> 4)  GPL v3 or later.

On what basis are you allowed to choose 3 or 4?  If you elect the GPLv2,
your work must be licensed under the terms of the GPLv2, because that's
what the GPLv2 says.  And if you elect the GPLv3, mumble mumble GPLv3
mumble GPLv3 mumble.

And yet people have been issuing derivatives of "v2 or later" works that
are themselves under "v2 or later" for decades, without any apparent
legal right to do so.

-- 
Go, and never darken my towels again!           John Cowan
        --Rufus T. Firefly                      http://ccil.org/~cowan