[Bf-committers] GPLv3 Released (for license gurus).

[Jean-Michel Smith]

This is what I meant by making GPL v2 and v3 compatible for blender
purposes by dual licensing, i.e. releasing blender explicitly under
both licenses, or any later version. (I should have proofread my
original post--in my haste, I erroneously implied the two licenses
were compatible with each other, which they are not.)  If the
phraseology is "Version 2, Version 3, or (at your option) any later
version", all that has been done is that Blender is explicitly dual
licensed under both GPL v2 and GPL v3.  It doesn't really change much,
as Blender wisely used the recommended FSF language to begin with,
except to explicitly make known that GPL v3 code is also compatible
with Blender licensing. Since many future projects will probably be
released under GPL v3 or later, this clarification is valuable, but
legally speaking, perhaps not strictly required.

The only trouble would arise if GPL v2 ONLY code were included in
blender, and GPL v3 ONLY (or later) code were included as well.  Since
the vast majority of projects use the "or (at your option) any later
version" language, this shouldn't become a major problem.  It would be
wise to do an audit to identify any such gotchas, as in the future
many (most?) projects will probably be GPL v3 simply to protect
against the softwater patent issues that arise in those countries
unlucky enough to have such things.

To my knowledge, the only project that is GPL v2 only is the Linux
kernel, mainly because of a spat between Linus Torvalds and Richard
Stallman many years ago, and the distrust between the two that
followed.  Unfortunate for the community, but unless Blender is going
to start linking directly to the Linux kernel, not really relevant to
the Blender project.

Regards,

Jean.


On 01/07/07, Doug Ollivier <doug at mudpuddle.co.nz> wrote:
> So a concern is that libraries linked to will be V2 and will not
> distribute themselves under V3?
>
> What happens when its the other way around?  you will have
> incompatibilities either way.
>
> Doug Ollivier
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-- 
Jean-Michel Smith
http://jm-smith.com/