updating the GPL's status in http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category ?

[John Cowan]

Raj Mathur scripsit:

> On Wednesday 20 Jan 2010, Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:
> > GPLv2 has not been superseded - the Linux kernel, for instance, is
> >  still under "GPL version 2 or later" and not "3 or later", because
> >  Linus Torvalds disagrees with several of the changes made between v2
> >  and v3.

In fact the Linux kernel is under plain 2, not 2-or-later.

> On an unrelated note, is Linus' agreement only a necessary condition for 
> GPL v3 to be accepted for the Linux kernel, or is it both necessary and 
> sufficient?  My guess would be the former, since each individual 
> contributor has to agree to a change in licence, right?

That is widely believed (including by members of this list) but it is
almost certainly incorrect, at least in the U.S.  The Linux kernel is a
work of joint authorship, defined by the Copyright Act as "a work prepared
by two or more authors with the intention that their contributions be
merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole".

Any joint author may make a non-exclusive license under whatever terms;
see http://www.publaw.com/joint.html (which makes no reference to
software) or Thomson v. Larson, 147 F.3d 195, 199 (2d Cir. 1998): "Joint
authorship entitles the co-authors to equal undivided interests in the
whole work -- in other words, each joint author has the right to use or
to license the work as he or she wishes, subject only to the obligation
to account to the other joint owner for any profits that are made."
In the case of FLOSS software, there are of course no profits.

That said, AFAIK no FLOSS software author has ever tried to do this,
and the reputational damage would probably be severe, given how strong
the belief in unanimous consent is.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
        --Gerald Holton