[darcs-users] Re: this is not licence advocacy

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Colin" == Colin McMillen <mcmillen at cs.cmu.edu> writes:

    Colin> it's not inconceivable that 20-30 years down the road, FSF
    Colin> might have a leader that wouldn't be immune to, say, a
    Colin> several-million dollar bribe from $BIG_CORP that then calls
    Colin> the shots and releases a GPL version X that essentially
    Colin> puts all previously-GPL'd works into the public domain, or
    Colin> under a BSD-style license, or a license that stipulates
    Colin> "GPL version X-1 OR $BIG_CORP can do whatever it wants with
    Colin> the source", or any number of other unintended things.

While what you do is up to you, I think your scenario should be debunked.

First, if in 20 or 30 years the free software movement is so weak that
the FSF can be suborned as you suggest (it would take more than one
officer), what are you worrying about?  The movement is dead, and
there will be nobody left to want to derive from your software anyway.

Second, this is very unlikely to succeed, and becomes less likely with
every project that moves toward using FSF-style assignments.

    (1) The FSF's convenants of incorporation bind it in certain ways.
    I have been given to understand (public and private mail from RMS)
    that they are not at all water-tight, but would be rather
    embarrassing to work around legally.

    (2) The FSF assignment promises that the assigned code will be
    redistributed only under a free license _in perpetuity_.  That
    means that FSF code that is derivative of assigned code must be
    licensed under copyleft.

IANAL, but I have to think that it would be very difficult to work the
kind of magic you're talking about.  For one thing, there are a bunch
of large companies with substantial investment in GPL-ed code, which
have already demonstrated an institutional commitment to it both with
investment and in court.

    Colin> This is why I never use the "or any later version" clause
    Colin> in any software I release. Sure, it may seem a bit
    Colin> paranoid, but I don't see any substantial reason why the
    Colin> clause is there in the first place.

Third, you're definitely causing problems immediately for all
derivatives of your work.  Smart projects will not incorporate your
code in their "GPL vX or later" code bases without getting permission
_in advance_ to relicense, because developers do disappear or turn
into responsible citizens with children to support, etc.  I have
personally been burned by a disappearing developer (who I suspect
chose to omit the "or later" clause to inhibit redistribution by third
parties), and by the FSF's mistake in not only using a non-GPL copyleft
license for Emacs 19 documentation, but failing to give it a name and
version number and use the "or later" clause in permissions notices.

-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.