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

Alexandre Oliva
2007-06-13T22:38:46Z

On Jun 13, 2007, lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Lennart Sorensen) wrote:

> I believe a number of people don't think the GPL v3 is in the same
> spirit as the GPL v2. I guess it comes down to what people thought the
> spirit of the GPL v2 was.

So let's go back to the preamble, that provides motivations and some
guidance as to the interpretation of the legal text (i.e., the spirit
of the license):

[...] the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your
freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software
is free for all its users. [...]

[...] Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have
the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get
it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of
it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the
rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities
for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify
it.

[...] if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or
for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have

Can anyone show me how any of the provisions of GPLv3 fails to meet
this spirit?

--
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}