kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Javier Serrano <javier.serrano.pareja@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 1:56 PM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I believe it's a fairly common practice to include a copy of the GPL in
> a project's source code so I will remove the GPL2 only part that Dick
> added to the top of the license file if that is not objectionable.  I'm
> assuming that no other modifications have been made to the GPL license
> part of the file.

I am afraid that would still be misleading since we have both GPL2+
and GPL3+ files in the project. Why have the text of GPL2 in
COPYRIGHT.txt, therefore giving the false impression that the whole
project is GPL2?

I would like to join Martijn in thanking Dick for his generosity, not
only for explicitly allowing to license his files under GPL3 with a
message to the list, but for including the "or later" in all the
headers of the many files he committed through the years. When you say
"or later" you are saying that you are allowing the maintainers of GPL
(i.e. the FSF) to have quite some impact on how the fruit of your hard
work can be used in the future. This is a hard decision, especially
for people who do not necessarily share all of the values and agenda
of the FSF, but it's proven to be very good for projects. The "or
later" gives flexibility for the future. It allows linking in code
which is licensed using new versions of the GPL, which get released in
response to a changing legal environment or perceived shortcomings in
older versions. So using "or later" is generous, and I believe it's
also the right thing to do so far as the project is concerned.

Thanks all,

Javier