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

Alexandre Oliva
2007-06-15T19:11:46Z

On Jun 15, 2007, Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:

>> 3) Another thing I've tried to do was to try to figure out why Linux
>> developers seem to consider v2 better than v3 for their own goals. I
>> must admit I failed. The presented reasons don't seem to distinguish
>> v2 from v3 to me, or rather make v3 sound better.

> What right does Linus or anyone else have to change the rules

None. It would have to be an agreement between all parties involved.
A difficult one, everyone knows.

But see, this is a distraction. It doesn't even begin to address the
relevant (to me) question: why Linux developers seem to consider v2
better than v3 for their own goals.

I can appreciate the difficulties that there would be for switching
from v2 to v3. This in itself might be a reason to not even try to
switch to another license, no matter how much better it could possibly
be.

But it doesn't give any hint whatsoever as to why v2 is better than
v3. In fact, it simply avoids addressing that point.

Now, of course, each individual contributor may have different reasons
to be part of the Linux community, and each individual contributor may
have chosen v2 or v2+ or any other v2-compatible set of licensing
terms for different reasons.

I'd very much like to hear (err read), from those who think v2 serves
their reasons to contribute to Linux better than v3, why that is so.

Thanks,

--
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}