For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

[Donovan Hawkins]

On Sun, 9 Sep 2007, Rick Moen wrote:

> It is clear to me that the example you cite, of a project leader
> changing the project's licensing terms from GPLv2 to GPLv3, does qualify
> as protecting the rights of contributors and avoiding injury to them.

GPL v2 requires that you maintain the "right to Tivoize" to downstream 
users...you must relicense under GPL v2 which allows Tivoization. You see 
this as a loophole that needed closing, but Torvalds himself sees this as 
the license operating exactly as intended. His quote (from linux-kernel):

"I didn't want money, I didn't want hardware, I just wanted the 
improvements back.
...
And given that background, do you see why the GPLv2 is _still_ better than
the GPLv3? I don't care about the hardware. I'll use it, but it's not what
Linux is all about. Linux is about something much bigger than any
individual device.
...
So instead of thinking of Tivo as something "evil", I think of Tivo as the
working bee who will never pass on its genes, but it actually ended up
helping the people who *do* pass on their genes"


If you were the project leader who took the Linux kernel to GPL v3, 
Torvalds could claim damages in exactly the same way that taking it 
non-copyleft would damage him. He wishes to protect this right and you 
have removed that protection in your "upgrade".


Perhaps other open source developers would be willing to follow your 
advice if you'd like to indemnify him against a claim like this. You said 
this was a simple theory to follow, so you're not taking much risk...in 
fact, you're taking exactly the same risk that you expect those same 
unpaid developers to take.


> But you're right that the nearly universal acceptance of the wrongheaded
> notion you voice makes it "culturally" problematic for a project leader
> to take the ethical course of action.

Because you apparently believe GPL v3 is a better implementation of GPL 
v2, and thus upgrading is the correct choice. If you believe as Torvalds 
does and think GPL v3 is a very different license following a different 
vision, you have every right to expect your project leader to ask first.

The fact that Torvalds never asked contributors to sign over copyright to 
him suggests that he feels the same way.

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Donovan Hawkins, PhD                 "The study of physics will always be
Software Engineer                     safer than biology, for while the
hawkins at cephira.com                   hazards of physics drop off as 1/r^2,
http://www.cephira.com                biological ones grow exponentially."
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