I'm pretty sure you have to ask me since you accepted a patch from me and I did not sign any kind of joint copyright assignment. Whether or not that is the case that is the case, you do have my permission to change the license to anything open or closed source.
That being said, I'm not sure I like GPL v3. I think it takes things to far with anti DRM clauses. I would not GPL v3 any project I was in charge of. A project being GPL 3 would not encourage or hinder me from being a user or contributor, unless the issue of the DRM clause had some obvious direct consequences for that project.
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Thanks for your messages. Don't worry, I'm not taking them the wrong way at all. Of course I wouldn't change the license without consulting all contributors who are contactable. The thought of switching to a closed source license never occurred to me and I should have made that clear in my message!
What has changed is that 1.1.0 removed the last third-party source file that was GPL (a simple UTF-8 validator that is no longer used in the program), so the only GPL code in the project is now the project community's own.
I agree with you: as far as I can make out, GPL v3 poses the risk that Suse, for example, may not be able to distribute the program (obviously this is speculative as the program isn't currently available from the Suse repos).
I was just struck that all other code used in the program is LGPL or similar, so for the first time it is at least _possible_ to consult the community about licenses.
Finally I felt I should at least ask everyone about this as I do support the goals of RMS and the Free Software Foundation.
Thanks again for your patch.
Best,
Gerald
PS Apologies for omitting to add your name to the credits. This was an oversight in the rush to release the bug fixes in 1.1.0.1.
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I apologize if I came off particularly strong with my reply. Do realize though, that you have to take things like community support into account when changing a license. Like I said before I would allow you to change the license to whatever you chose, even if it were close source. Just realize that if you accept code from the community, your work is owned by the community.
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Just to throw in my two cents: I think it's important to have it available under GPL 3, but it might be useful to keep it available under GPL 2 as well to see how things shake out. I agree that GPL v2 or any later version is a good option.
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As a potential contributor, I would prefer GPLv3. But if you have contributors who object strongly to GPLv3, then stay with the standard wording of GPLv2 which includes the phrase 'or (at your option) any later version'.
IMHO some of the objections raised to GPLv3 are of very dubious validity. The chance of SuSE excluding GPLv3 apps is nil, in fact I believe (but have not checked for myself) that it already includes some GPLv3 apps; refusing to do so would simply drive its users to another distro. GPLv3 does correct some bugs in GPLv2 and it would therefore be (in general terms) a good thing if projects which can migrate to it, do so.
But, again, every contributor has a veto.
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Since version 1.1.0 the program no longer contains GPL v2 source code, so we're free to change the license _if_ we want to.
Does anyone have a strong feeling re GPL v2, GPL v3 or LGPL?
If in doubt I'm inclined to stick with GPL v2 for now.
All feedback welcome!
-Gerald
I'm pretty sure you have to ask me since you accepted a patch from me and I did not sign any kind of joint copyright assignment. Whether or not that is the case that is the case, you do have my permission to change the license to anything open or closed source.
That being said, I'm not sure I like GPL v3. I think it takes things to far with anti DRM clauses. I would not GPL v3 any project I was in charge of. A project being GPL 3 would not encourage or hinder me from being a user or contributor, unless the issue of the DRM clause had some obvious direct consequences for that project.
Hi Justin
Thanks for your messages. Don't worry, I'm not taking them the wrong way at all. Of course I wouldn't change the license without consulting all contributors who are contactable. The thought of switching to a closed source license never occurred to me and I should have made that clear in my message!
What has changed is that 1.1.0 removed the last third-party source file that was GPL (a simple UTF-8 validator that is no longer used in the program), so the only GPL code in the project is now the project community's own.
I agree with you: as far as I can make out, GPL v3 poses the risk that Suse, for example, may not be able to distribute the program (obviously this is speculative as the program isn't currently available from the Suse repos).
I was just struck that all other code used in the program is LGPL or similar, so for the first time it is at least _possible_ to consult the community about licenses.
Finally I felt I should at least ask everyone about this as I do support the goals of RMS and the Free Software Foundation.
Thanks again for your patch.
Best,
Gerald
PS Apologies for omitting to add your name to the credits. This was an oversight in the rush to release the bug fixes in 1.1.0.1.
Another option is to distribute it simultaneously under GPL v2 and v3 the way perl is distributed under either the GPL or artistic license.
I apologize if I came off particularly strong with my reply. Do realize though, that you have to take things like community support into account when changing a license. Like I said before I would allow you to change the license to whatever you chose, even if it were close source. Just realize that if you accept code from the community, your work is owned by the community.
I agree. In a way GPL v2 already does this by optionally including later versions: 'or (at your option) any later version'.
I might just leave it at that...
Thanks again for your help!
Gerald
Just to throw in my two cents: I think it's important to have it available under GPL 3, but it might be useful to keep it available under GPL 2 as well to see how things shake out. I agree that GPL v2 or any later version is a good option.
As a potential contributor, I would prefer GPLv3. But if you have contributors who object strongly to GPLv3, then stay with the standard wording of GPLv2 which includes the phrase 'or (at your option) any later version'.
IMHO some of the objections raised to GPLv3 are of very dubious validity. The chance of SuSE excluding GPLv3 apps is nil, in fact I believe (but have not checked for myself) that it already includes some GPLv3 apps; refusing to do so would simply drive its users to another distro. GPLv3 does correct some bugs in GPLv2 and it would therefore be (in general terms) a good thing if projects which can migrate to it, do so.
But, again, every contributor has a veto.
Thanks Nick, I think we'll stick with v2 for now and I'll concentrate on improving the application :-)
Gerald