* How do we want to handle LGPL/GPL "vXor later" versus LGPL/GPL

I think that this approach will create confusion. First, I estimate that 99.9% of all GPL licenses are version or later, so most users of SPDX will assume that GPLv2 is GPLv2 or later.

Unless we can make this very clear, it will be very confusing. I am open to other ways of solving this problem.

I strongly agree that we need to clearly distinguish between "GPL v2" and
"GPL v2 or Later" and that both should be in the primary license list,
although we may also want to keep more precise semantics about versions in
the background.   I suppose that this case could be construed as a type of
Dual License such as "MPL 1.1 or LGPL 2.1" - e.g. "GPL v2 or GPL Later".

I suppose that this case could be construed
as a type of Dual License such as "MPL 1.1 or LGPL 2.1" - e.g. "GPL v2
or GPL Later".

Don't confuse a conjunction of terms with a disjunction. GPLv2 and
"ANY later version" is a conjunction of
licensing terms, while 'MPL1.1 or LGPL 2.1' is a disjunction.

On Tue, Nov 09, 2010 at 12:10:13PM -0800, dmg wrote:

Don't confuse a conjunction of terms with a disjunction. GPLv2 and
"ANY later version" is a conjunction of
licensing terms, while 'MPL1.1 or LGPL 2.1' is a disjunction.

<delurking>

Actually, it is not inherently clear whether "GPLv2 or any later
version" licensing is meant to be conjunctive or disjunctive, but it
is my sense that the majority view in the open source developer
community is that it is disjunctive. By that I mean, if I get some
"GPLv2 or later" code, I can redistribute it under "GPLv2 or later"
(which is what is done 99% of the time), or (by revising the license
notices) "GPLv2 only", or (by revising the license notices) "GPLv3
only" [or "GPLv3 or later"]).

As a historical example, in ~2006 active developers of BusyBox acted
on the assumption that "GPLv2 or later" was disjunctive, and made some
effort to alter license notices to say "GPLv2 only". Bruce Perens, one
of the early developers of BusyBox, objected to this, arguing that
GPLv2, in requiring preservation of license notices, prevents the
removal of the "or later" choice. See:
http://lwn.net/Articles/367058/

The FSF's position is that "GPLv2 or later" is disjunctive, precisely
like a "MPL 1.1 or LGPL 2.1" dual license, and there was some effort
in GPLv3 to clarify that.

- RF


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I think that we need to treat the v2 and later as a separate license in the
list. Although it would be nice from a purely technical point of view to
factor that into a conjunction or disjunction of two licenses, it is clear
just from the opinions on this list that doing so may cause some loss in
fidelity. Given the many differing opinions here, it seems leaving it as a
separate license would be the most conservative approach.

I also can't see any significant downside to making the "and later" as
different licenses except a very slight amount of overhead in having a
couple more licenses in the list.

I think having an "version or later" license set is best way to
handle this. Perhaps we could predefine some common "version or
later" license sets (such as GPv2OrLater) to improve the simplicity
and clarity.

I think that this approach will create confusion. First, I estimate that 99.9% of all GPL licenses are version or later, so most users of SPDX will assume that GPLv2 is GPLv2 or later. Unless we can make this very clear, it will be very confusing. I am open to other ways of solving this problem. Second, I think that this distinction is very important now and will increase in importance as GPLv3 becomes more important and some GPLv2 and later programs are forked to GPLv3.

Hi All,

I think I created a bit of a mess with what was intended to be a simple question, but sort of opened a can or worms!  Let me try to re-center a bit, if possible…

I think it can be said that everyone agrees that there must be a clear way to capture the difference between code that is licensed under GPL v2 and code that is licensed under GPL v2 or later (for example).  The former situation is a straight forward, single license situation, whereas the latter provide a choice of licenses, the choice being among various versions of the GPL license.

I started out by asking how, if at all, this difference should be reflected on the actual license list.  However, the subsequent discussion seems to illustrate that we must first determine how to capture this in the SPDX file, which will then dictate what is listed on the actual license list.  From a broader perspective, we need to decide how SPDX will accurately capture any licensing situation that involves multiple licenses.  Perhaps the answer to this question is really more aptly left up to the technical team.

To be clear, I think we have identified two different multiple licensing situations:

1)      Where the licensee has a choice.  This is sometimes referred to as disjunctive licensing and creates an “OR” situation, in that the code is licensed under one of the choices, but not multiple licenses.  Examples of this include:

a.      Code is licensed under GPL v2 or later – this essentially creates a licensing choice of GPL v2 OR GPL v3
b.      Code is licensed under MPL/GPL/LGPL – this creates a licensing choice of one of the three licenses (or if the GPL and LGPL options indicate “or later,” then the choice would be among 5 different licenses)

i.      In either situation, this information is usually indicated in the header, but the actual license text itself remains the same.  In other words, there is no MPL/GPL/LGPL license but only these individual licenses and a way to indicate the choice of one of them. 

ii.     GPL v2 or later creates the same scenario in that there is a licensing choice.  In this case, the individual licenses are GPL v2, GPL v3 (and perhaps one day, GPL v4, etc.)

iii.    There is potentially the further distinction of where there is a default license if no “choice” is affirmatively identified, but in this case as well, each license remains an individual license.

2)      Where multiple licenses cover the same code.  This is sometimes referred to as dual (or tri, etc.) licensing and creates an “AND” situation.  For example:

a.      Code is licensed under Apache and BSD.  In this case, there is no choice; the licensee must comply with both licenses for that code.

(if there is another licensing scenario that involves more than one license (or license version) or anything else I missed here, please add)

This then begs the question of not only how will an SPDX file denote multiple licenses, but also how it differentiates between the above two scenarios (OR, AND)?

Once this has been determined (probably by the more technical folks in the group), I presume the license list protocol will follow.   

Sorry for not realizing this proper order of events!  In the meantime, I’ll leave the license list as is as regards to those licenses.

Cheers,

Jilayne Lovejoy  |  Corporate Counsel

jlovejoy@...

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720 240 4556  |  fax

1 888 OpenLogic  |  toll free

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OpenLogic, Inc.

Headquarters, Broomfield, Colorado 80021

But from a modeling point of view, I see the statement "any newer
version of the license" as a licensing statement that gets
conjuncted to the GPL. In other words, the license is the
concatenation of the clauses of the GPL plus the "any newer version
of the license".

a. Code is licensed under GPL v2 or later - this essentially
creates a licensing choice of GPL v2 OR GPL v3

Jilayne Lovejoy said on Tue, Nov 09, 2010 at 07:53:12PM -0700:

a. Code is licensed under GPL v2 or later - this essentially
creates a licensing choice of GPL v2 OR GPL v3

Which is only true at that moment of time. If/when GPLv4 is available,
you would miss that one. So it's important to keep the fact that the
author stated that it's GPLv2+ to cover this.
So it's not simply OR. It's OR with potential licenses that do not
exist.

Making it IMHO a beast in itself.

n Tue, 09 Nov 2010, dmg wrote:

But from a modeling point of view, I see the statement "any newer
version of the license" as a licensing statement that gets
conjuncted to the GPL. In other words, the license is the
concatenation of the clauses of the GPL plus the "any newer version
of the license".

No, it's not. GPLv3 and v2 conflict with each other, so a license
which is the conjunction of both v2 and v3 is nonsensical. There's a
reason why the full language of the recommended licensing clause for
GPL'ed works is