[Panel-devel] [PATCH] Beginnings of a panel implementation for discussion

[Eike Hein]

Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> Just a random thought, but that "or later" bit seems
> a little dangerous. They (FSF) could put anything
> they want into v3, and the code would automatically
> be licenced under it. Not like they'd do anything
> like that though ;)

GPLv3 has already been released, after an unprece-
dented multi-year public debate process. I perso-
nally think it's worked fairly well.

And by the way, the code would not "automatically
be licensed under it." The "or later" means that
a user can chose to use the code under the terms
of a newer version - or stick to the old one. One
license doesn't go away because the other is re-
leased.


> If a version says "GPL2 or later" that includes 3, 
> as v3 is "later". As soon as a new licence is out,
> it gets bumped up to it. People can start claiming 
> (because it is) that "OMG ProjectX is GPL3" and 
> then that gets blown out proportion, and theres a 
> good chance that many potential (commercial) users 
> will be put off, and decide to stay away.

Again, GPL v3 has already been released. We have
millions of lines of code under "GPLv2 or later",
and yet the world is still turning on its axis
without commercial users hunting us down with
pitchforks and torches.

More seriously, this discussion is off-topic here;
the GPLv3 discussion is on-going on kde-licensing.
There does seem to be a consensus within the KDE
development community that especially given that
we don't have a copyright assignment mechanic
(yet), the "or later" is important to being able
to react to potentially changing needs in licen-
sing further down the road, however.

Naturally, not everyone agrees. But it safe to say
that clogging panel-devel with a bikeshed argument
about licensing is not a good idea.


-- 
Regards,
Eike Hein, hein at kde.org