2015-11-27 7:17 GMT-08:00 Martin Owens <doctormo@...23...>:
On Thu, 2015-11-26 at 23:08 -0800, Krzysztof Kosiński wrote:
We actually have two bits of GPL v3 only code imported from Gimp: the expression evaluator and the spin-scale widget. Thus the current version of Inkscape technically violates the GPL, and the upcoming versions should be distributed as GPL v3+. As the next step, we should either ask the authors of those two files to release them under GPL v2+ or reimplement them.
Is the GPLv3+ a problem for us for releases?
Formally, we can't distribute GPLv3 code under GPLv2, so releases that contain that code violate the GPL. In practice, I doubt anyone from GIMP would complain (and copyright law is a civil matter, so there can't be any legal action as long as the owner is OK with it). But we should rectify this as soon as possible.
Should we have a think if we want to transition to GPLv3 at this point?
GPLv3 has some additional patent protections so that no one can knowingly poison your code with something patented and then litigate against you, which could be useful, but on the other hand it requires any code that is incorporated into a device to be modifiable by the user. I think this should ultimately be up to the community.
Best regards, Krzysztof