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Subject: Re: Licensing and Copyright Issues

Re: Licensing and Copyright Issues

From: Daniel Ankers <dan-rockbox_at_weirdo.org.uk>
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:31:24 +0100 (BST)

> On Tue, 11 Sep 2007, q wrote:
>
>> Recently the IRC channel has been rather full of discussion around the
>> current licensing of Rockbox (GPLV2 is how most people interpret it, but
>> it
>> *is* a little unclear)
>
> Without really taking a stand, I want to clarify what I think of the "or
> later" situation. I mean, can we bump the license to GPLv3 without the
> expressed consent of all copyright holders?
>
> ...
>
> So, what is "the Program" ? In my view we point out a file that explicitly
> says v2, but this clearly is not how everyone sees this. Lots of people
> now
> consider this phrasing in chapter 9 to be the text that basically implies
> "v2
> or later".

My (not a lawyer) interpretation is that "the program" is the Rockbox
code. The COPYING file is V2 of the GPL, but because we have not
specified anywhere that V2 is the only version which applies, V2 also
licences the code under any version of the GPL - earlier or later.

I'm don't have strong views as to which version of the license we use, but
I do think that we should specify one version so that this uncertainty is
resolved.

I'm happy for any code I've contributed (or contribute in the future) to
be relicenced under any version of the GPL to match the rest of Rockbox.

Dan
(Still watching, but not coding much)
Received on 2007-09-11

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