Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

Alexandre Oliva
2007-06-14T19:30:16Z

On Jun 14, 2007, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 14 Jun 2007, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>>
>> > In other words, Red Hat distributes copies (and yes, you *get* that copy),
>> > and you cannot modify that copy that you got.
>>
>> And Red Hat can't either. I thought that was quite obvious.

> The GPLv2 talks about specific rights, like the ability to make changes
> and distribute things, and says that you have to give downstream all those
> same rights.

The spirit gives the intuition of "passing on all the rights". The
legal terms have to be more careful about that, to avoid the very
situation you're debating, so they state "you can't impose further
restrictions on the exercise of the rights".

Do you understand the difference?

> For example, for any code that I have full copyright over, I have rights
> that you DO NOT HAVE!

No dispute about that, and this is irrelevant to this point. I've
already responded and clarified this point 2 or 3 times in this
thread. Do you need me to find a URL for you? It was in respose to
Dmitri Torokhov.

> So if you want to argue that I should re-license, you should argue that
> the GPLv3 is better. And quite frankly, you haven't.

In fact, I haven't even tried. So far, I've merely been trying to
show that it still follows the same spirit, dispelling the muth that
it doesn't, and trying to understand why you think GPLv2 is so much
better, which I think is related with tit-for-tat and retribution in
kind.

--
Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}