[time-nuts] Open source

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

--------
In message <CANX10hAonf8MauoTCR9w8k9wm-cKbGkQqujm6epQ5wzrqp50CQ at mail.gmail.com>, David Kirkby writes:
>On 8 December 2012 08:36, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>
>> And one other detail most people overlook, is that the default GPL text
>> gives any users the right to use any later version of the GPL license
>> instead of the one you copy&pasted.  This has only happened once but
>> it had ground-shaking repercussions through out the industry.
>
>I don't agree with that statement.

You underestimate the power of blind "copy&paste" here:  The point is
not that you _can_ modify the license on this detail, but that most
people don't realize that they should, and the default has the
"...or later" language in it.

>Unfortunately, the large number of licenses is a real pain. 
>[...]
>The amount of time spent on the Sage developers mailing list
>discussing license issues is not insignificant.

Yes, license-triage is a major task in many Open Source projects,
we have spent oodles of time on it in FreeBSD as well.

>Personally I'm not convined that Sage fully complies with the licenses
>and I'm not the only Sage developer to think that. 

And, short of a trip through a court, there is no way you can be sure.

All part of life in FOSS...

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.