Re: [gNewSense-users] KFV licence issue

[Luis Alberto Guzman]

Hi! again thanks for all the answers this helps a lot to understand this
better.

I wanted to add some points, to from my interpretation.

The kernel was developed by Linus Torvals (mainly) but not all, the
kernel itself is free software by being released under the GPLv2, now
days we know that the GPLv2 can't assure the complete freedom of the
software (because of new techniques that now are used to make a free
program, remove some freedoms), that's essentially why the GPLv3 was
written, to avoid this new tricks.

The Linux kernel is one example of this, Linus Torvals knows that, and
that's why (i believe) he doesn't want to change the license of the
kernel to an upgrade version.

But not all the kernel was developed by him, the copyright of each
author allows them to do with their software free or not free software,
(that's the reason we are checking it in the first place, isn't it?, to
remove the non-free)

So if some copyright holder wants to put it like:

FIRST CASE
 "GNU General Public License version 2 as published by the Free Software
Foundation" OR "This file is subject to the terms and conditions of the
GNU General Public License.  See the file COPYING in the main directory
of this archive for more details." OR ONLY "See the file COPYING in the
main directory of this archive for more details." 

***I may say that this can't be changed from GPLv2 since here to the
eternity if it changes Linus Torvals himself could and should remove
their software from the kernel.

SECOND CASE
GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This is the one i like, because we have the "authorization" of the
copyright holder to upgrade the license of this free software, maybe to
GPLv3 or GPLv8 (in the future :D), if we update the licence Linus
Torvals could remove it from the kernel, but never make a big deal about
it. (I think)

THIRD CASE
When the copyright holder only writes: "Under the terms of the GNU GPL
as published by the Free Software Foundation", i can apply the GPLv3,
because is the current one, but someone else could say -No is the
GPLv1!, i think the "correct" way to proceed is write the copyright
holder to define, if that is not possible, the GPLv2 "should" (not sure)
be the one, as some mates said.


FOURTH CASE
With the non-free software, i haven't found any non-free licence, this
software shouldn't be in here in the first place, if the licence that
Linus Torvals restricted were respected. So it must be removed to by the
developers if the copyright holders takes any of the freedoms that the
GPL gives, i assume the copyright holder can do that (by having the
copyright he can make it non-free).

MY ASSUMPTION
If we find non-free software that has not being removed. It means that
the copyright holders have the authority to release pieces of non-free
software under a mainly free software licenced program.
So the new developers has "also" the authority to release some pieces of
free software under an upgraded licence such as GPLv3 or later.

THE UGLY CASE
When the software has no licence, no copyright holder, anything, is that
free software?, i suppose, but not sure.
Putting it under the GPLv2 as the part of the kernel, is correct?


Sorry for making this topic longer, but i wanted to have conclusions and
settle them in the wiki
(http://wiki.gnewsense.org/Main/DocumentingYourWorkKernel). For further
development, and new collaborators.

Any observation?
(You might notice that my english isn't the best but i tried to make it
as clear as i could)

El jue, 13-03-2008 a las 00:18 +0100, crap0101 escribió:
> Hi! I'm marco
> scuse me, i forget to sign the last mail:
> 
> hi! infact, this is a confused situation. In a past mail i refeer what
> FSF wrote me about question on kernel's licence. I know "assuming"
> something is not the better choice, mostly in legal affair, and the only
> good thing to do is declare everytime the licence. Unfortunatly this is
> not the case. You talk about compatible work: well, many files has been
> released with "GPL V2 or loader", so we can "assume" the next developer
> can put it out with GPL v3 licence...but, in this case, is not a
> violation of the "main" kernel's licence? well, this is (for me) an
> other contradiction... probably the only solution is the kernel "at all"
> change licence to GPL v3 but... :-( 
> 
> 
> 
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