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

[Ben Tilly]

On Dec 2, 2007 7:24 PM, John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org> wrote:
> 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.

If I elect the GPL v2 in copying or distributing, I must follow the
rules of the GPL v2.  But my recipients get their copyright license
from the original offer, not me, and so even though I said GPL v2,
they are free to say GPL v3 because the license says they can.

If I elect the GPL v2 in making modifications, I must follow the rules
of the GPL v2.  That requires me to release my code under the GPL v2.
But nothing *prevents* me from giving any additional permissions that
I want on the part that I wrote.  (This is the same principle that
makes dual licensing possible.)  If the overall license says GPL v2 or
later and I apply that license to my own work then I've satisfied the
GPL v2's requirements to license my work under the GPL v2.  I've also
chosen to give additional permissions, but the GPL v2 doesn't say I
can't.

> 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.

Even if this was not allowed under a technical reading of the
permissions, the license so clearly intends to make this possible that
a copyright holder would have a hard time convincing a judge that a
copyright contributer couldn't have meant "v2 or later" because the
license they accepted it under doesn't allow that.

But as I've just shown, a technical reading of the permissions allows
redistribution as v2 or later.

Ben