Hello board,
Section 9 of GNU GPL says:
The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
Almost all of our files say "released under GNU GPL" without specifying the version; thus they are effectively under GPL v1+. The only offenders I've identified are:
src/xml/quote.cpp src/main-cmdlineact.h src/main-cmdlineact.cpp src/live_effects/lpe-jointype.h src/live_effects/lpe-jointype.cpp
which are GPL v2 only. If we rewrote those files or contacted the authors to release under GPL v2+, we could change the advertised license from GPL v2 to GPL v2+. What do you think?
Best regards, Krzysztof
On Thu, 2015-11-26 at 18:59 -0800, Krzysztof Kosiński wrote:
which are GPL v2 only. If we rewrote those files or contacted the authors to release under GPL v2+, we could change the advertised license from GPL v2 to GPL v2+. What do you think?
This is a very good idea. I don't like the idea of the code base being unsure with it's licensing and having surprise files is a headache.
Martin Owens
2015-11-26 19:10 GMT-08:00 Martin Owens <doctormo@...23...>:
On Thu, 2015-11-26 at 18:59 -0800, Krzysztof Kosiński wrote:
which are GPL v2 only. If we rewrote those files or contacted the authors to release under GPL v2+, we could change the advertised license from GPL v2 to GPL v2+. What do you think?
This is a very good idea. I don't like the idea of the code base being unsure with it's licensing and having surprise files is a headache.
OK, I rewrote src/xml/quote.cpp and sent e-mails to the authors of the remaining files. We could very realistically declare GPL v2+ next release, and backporting the quote.cpp file cloud also do it for the 0.91.1 point release.
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.
Best regards, Krzysztof
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?
Should we have a think if we want to transition to GPLv3 at this point?
Martin,
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
On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 10:17:29AM -0500, Martin Owens wrote:
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?
Should we have a think if we want to transition to GPLv3 at this point?
Josh, Jon, and I pondered on this a bit back when RMS raised the issue. IIRC the major practical reason for favoring GPLv3+ would be if we wanted to pull in code that was licensed as GPLv3+, but we didn't identify anything super compelling.
Most of our other peer projects are GPLv2+, so we maximize ability to share our code to them by adopting that. I seem to recall there were a couple other reasons favoring GPLv2+ beyond that but I'm not remembering what they were.
Bryce
On Thu, Nov 26, 2015 at 06:59:51PM -0800, Krzysztof Kosiński wrote:
Hello board,
Section 9 of GNU GPL says:
The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
Almost all of our files say "released under GNU GPL" without specifying the version; thus they are effectively under GPL v1+. The only offenders I've identified are:
src/xml/quote.cpp src/main-cmdlineact.h src/main-cmdlineact.cpp src/live_effects/lpe-jointype.h src/live_effects/lpe-jointype.cpp
which are GPL v2 only. If we rewrote those files or contacted the authors to release under GPL v2+, we could change the advertised license from GPL v2 to GPL v2+. What do you think?
RMS contacted me about this situation with inconsistent GPL licensing earlier this year. It's good to get the licensing cleaned up to be GPLv2, thanks for undertaking the effort. It'll be good to have this straightened out for the release.
Bryce
Best regards, Krzysztof
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participants (3)
-
Bryce Harrington -
Krzysztof Kosiński -
Martin Owens