On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 2:07 PM, Wheeler, David A <dwheeler@...> wrote:

On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Philippe Ombredanne <pombredanne@...> wrote:

David:

Schuberth, Sebastian <sebastian.schuberth@...> wrote:

I think you are misquoted my reply for being from Sebastian.

The issue is how the software is licensed, not what the text of the GPL
(or anything else) is. The use of "+" to mean "or later" is a long-standing
convention preceding SPDX.

Pardon me, but I think the text(s) of the GPL define how the the
software is licensed...
As I said initially I agree this is indeed a long standing convention.
But this does not mean that this a correct convention and that the
status-quo should continue.

FWIW, I said essentially the same thing as you about the origin of
this + notation:

On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Philippe Ombredanne
<pombredanne@...> wrote:

So to me it [the +] is an exception to the GPL-2.0 (or 3) to disallow the use of
other versions. A fairly common exception because it is used in the
kernel and that likely led to this flawed but widely spread approach
to be adopted by Linux distros. And later adopted by SPDX.

On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Philippe Ombredanne
<pombredanne@...> wrote:

Essentially GPL-2.0 and GPL-2.0+ mean exactly the same the thing.

No, there's a need to distinguish between "exactly this version" or "this version of later".
Some software, such as the Linux kernel, are GPL version 2.0 only.

My point here is that when I refer to the GPL 2.0 I have by default
the rights to use any other
version, unless as a special EXCEPTION you are telling me that I can
use only this version
and no other version.
So GPL-2.0 with no-other-version would be capturing better the
exceptional nature of the
version restriction, than GPL-2.0+ does in forcing a plus in the general case

--
Cordially
Philippe Ombredanne