GPL v2 only,please

[David Kastrup]

Didier Verna <didier at xemacs.org> writes:

> David Kastrup <dak at gnu.org> wrote:
>
>> "SL Baur" <steve at xemacs.org> writes:
>>
>>> I wish all my contributions to XEmacs to be considered
>>> under the GPL V2 only.
>>
>> Backdated activism like this is one of the reason the Free Software
>> Foundation requires copyright assignments for contributions to Emacs.
>
>         Old wars and rude tone set aside, I can understand Steve's
> concern (good to hear from you BTW). I've always felt uncomfortable
> with the "any later version" part of the copyright headers where you
> agree that your work may be used under the terms of a license you
> don't know yet. That's a bit like signing a blank check[1].

Yes and no.  The vast bulk of software "(C) FSF" has been transferred
to them using a copyright assignment.  The form this copyright
assignments takes is a contract between _two_ parties.  The FSF spells
out that it will only release the software under terms that don't
differentiate between the FSF and the general public, and there are
several other guarantees.

If the FSF could not release the majority of code (C) FSF under future
versions of the GPL without violating their contracts to copyright
assigners, that would be quite pointless.

> I've even asked Richard about this in person once and he couldn't
> give me any satisfactory answer.

Basically, it boils down to whether you'd rather trust the FSF to keep
to its promises and its course and spirit, or trust legislation,
technology and politics to refrain from coming up with new ways to
eventually render the current GPL versions ineffective.

I'd rather sign my blank check to the FSF than to a faceless army of
politicians, legislators and corporate lawyers.

And that's basically the choice it boils down to _unless_ all
contributors (or copyright holders) remain permanently available for
an unanimous agreement on relicensing if necessitated by events.  Only
when people are guaranteed to remain accessible and reasonable (which
is not too frequent, I am afraid, sometimes for as mundane reasons as
death), one can delay signing a check to whenever it becomes
necessary.

In a way, you sign a blank check whenever you vote in a representative
democracy.  You can decide who you are addressing it to, but that's
basically it.

-- 
David Kastrup