On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Rob Lanphier robla@wikimedia.org wrote:
Our code is "GPLv2 or later", which is the functional equivalent of being multi-licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and all later versions of the GPL) Therefore, the set of licenses that "GPLv2 or later" is compatible with is a strict superset of the licenses that "GPLv3 or later" is compatible with.
This is not true. The GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible licenses, and if you read the actual license disclaimer, you will see it is not the "functional equivalent" of having our code licensed under both.
Rather, what the disclaimer says is that our code is GPLv2 only, *but*, anybody who modifies or distributes it is free to, at their discretion, change the license to any later version of the GPL. You legally cannot have both the GPLv2 and GPLv3 because they are conflicting in their terms.
This is virtually identical to how the old MPL multi-licensing boilerplate is worded: https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/boilerplate-1.1/
...which is widely considered sufficient for GPL compatibility.
I've already described the numerous changes and fixes that have been made in the GPLv3, specifically easier enforcement due to changed policies on infringement, better international wording, etc. If you'd like to dispute any of the good ideas I've listed, then go ahead, but I think the improvements v3 makes are more than enough of a goal.
My apologies. I'll take those into consideration.
As for your point on it being useless because of the server-side nature of PHP, I semi-agree, which is why I proposed the AGPL, but nonetheless the advantages of the v3 will still help distributors who download MediaWiki from our site. The server-side nature of PHP has nothing to do with it.
My main point about not thinking too hard about GPLv3 specifically is because I'm generally a little skeptical about GPL's general applicability to our use case.
In general, I believe we should move more of our licensing toward Apache 2.0. It seems to provide a nice tradeoff between simplicity and providing some basic legal protections for the projects.
That is quite depressing to hear. MediaWiki is supposed to be an open source software movement, so I would think one of the goals of our community would be to preserve that and keep MediaWiki open source, but if the WMF has some future goals to make its software proprietary, then I can understand why we might want to aim toward something that allows that, such as the permissive Apache 2.0.
Please assume good faith.
There is absolutely no intention by the WMF to make our software proprietary. The only reason we'd entertain a switch to a more permissive license is as a means of collaborating with entities (companies, individuals, and organizations) who might steer clear of GPL software but otherwise be good open source collaborators out of enlightened self interest.
Rob