[PD] GPL details WAS: Keyboard shortcuts for "nudge", "done editing"

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Thu, 2011-10-06 at 15:46 -0700, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> 
> > From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>
> > To: Marvin Humphrey <marvin at rectangular.com>
> > Cc: "pd-list at iem.at" <pd-list at iem.at>
> > Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2011 5:44 PM
> > Subject: Re: [PD] Keyboard shortcuts for "nudge", "done editing"
> > 
> > Le 2011-09-28 à 21:44:00, Marvin Humphrey a écrit :
> > 
> >>  On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 12:44:39AM -0400, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> >>>  In my opinion, using GPLv3 has been the easiest of the options.  It
> >>>  means that we can use code that is licensed with a BSD, MIT, Tcl,
> >>>  Apache, GPLv2, LGPL, GPLv3, etc..  So its the most compatible to the
> >>>  code that's out there, meaning thinking about licenses less writing 
> > more
> >>>  code that everyone is free to use :)
> >> 
> >>  All I'm gonna say is that I see things from a different angle. :)
> > 
> > I have no idea what the angle is and how that licensing of «overall project» is 
> > supposed to work.
> > 
> > I'm lost.
> > 
> > Besides, I just realised that [pd META] says things like «LICENSE GPL v2» or 
> > «LICENSE GPL v3» but never «LICENSE GPL v2 OR LATER». Isn't that strange ?
> 
> GPL v2 - LICENSE.txt is the GPL v2
> GPL v3 - LICENSE.txt is the GPL v3
> 
> Then there are cases like pdogg, where LICENSE.txt is GPL v2 but in README.txt the author writes that the license is LGPL.
> 
> > 
> > The distinction has to be made between «version 2 only» and «version 2 or later» 
> > and between «version 3 only» and «version 3 and later» (even when, in that 
> > latter case, there is currently no version after 3).
> 
> How do I figure this out from the files inside a given libdir?
> 
> > 
> > BTW, there are even cases where it just says GPL without version number.
> 
> I believe those cases are where the only info I had was a statement in a README or somewhere that said "This software is released under the GPL".

The GPL includes the "or any later version" by default, but some people
remove that part.  The Linux kernel is a notable exception, I believe it
says "GPLv2 only".  We could adopt the Debian notation for this:

GPLv2+  standard GPL v2 or later
GPLv2   standard GPL v2 only
etc.

.hc