[TriLUG] GPLv3 -- What do you think?

[Nathan Conrad]

I think that you missed the /COPYING file in the kernel source:

>   NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
> services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
> of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
> Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
> Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
> kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.
>
> Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel
> is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not
> v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated.
>
>                        Linus Torvalds


To me, it seems quite clear that the ENTIRE Linux source is to be
distributed with the GPL v2 license. It isn't necessary for one to put
the statement in every source file, is it?

Of course, I believe that some old versions of the kernel did say 'v2
or later', so you could certainly fork the older versions with GPL
v3.

-Nathan Conrad

On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 12:48:56PM -0500, Rick DeNatale wrote:
> Here are some examples of copyright/license statements in the actual
> source code.
> 
> Linux/kernel/fork.c, panic.c, sys.c
> *  Copyright (C) 1991, 1992  Linus Torvalds
> 
> I do think that, regardless of whether or not Linus has done all the
> right things in terms of putting the correct commentary in his code,
> he's on the right path in terms of not wanting his code to fall under
> GPL v3 by default before it's finalized and the implications
> understood.
> --
> Rick DeNatale
>