Linus Says No GPLv3 for the Linux Kernel

HenchmenResources writes "Late Wednesday a posting from Linus Torvalds appered on the the Linux Kernel Mailing List. In it Linus states that the Linux Kernel will remain under the GPLv2. Types Linus,"The "version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version" language in the GPL copying file is not - and has never been - part of the actual License itself.""

Comments

Re:What v3 does he mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is licensed under GPL v2. In order to move to GPL v3, v4, v99 etc, EVERY SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR must accept this. Practically impossible.

Re:What v3 does he mean?

[Jon Pryor]

Don't contributors assign copyright to some type of Linux foundation?

No. Linux kernel contributors retain their own copyright. This is frequently considered to be a good thing, as it means that no single group has copyright over everything, which means that no single group can change the license to e.g. BSD and start selling a proprietary version of Linux.

Re:Huh

[k98sven]

How can code released under the GPL be relicensed at all, even GPLv3?

1) Because the GPL license can optionally include the statement that it's covered by the GPL and/or any later version.

2) Because a copyright holder can relicense, dual-license and in general put any conditions he or she wants on their copyrighted work, including multiple different sets of conditions (licenses).

What you are asking is akin to saying "If someone lends a book to me on a set of conditions, how can they be allowed to lend it to someone else on different ones?".

If it can be, why can't I take it and license it with a BSD-style or completely closed source license?

Because you don't own the copyright.

Re:What v3 does he mean?

[_xeno_]

He misinterpreted part of the GPLv3. The private key section says that if private keys are required for the code to function (in other words, your program will only load signed code) than you must make available a means to generate the signed code. The theory here is that certain hardware devices (*cough*TiVo*cough*) use GPLed software, but make it impossible to actually modify and run that software on their hardware device. In order to allow people to make changes and actually use those changes, you have to make available any private keys required to make the code actually run.

So if Mr. Torvalds has a private key that he uses to sign code, he is under no obligation to release that key to the public assuming that an end user can build and run the code without requiring the private key. You only have to release your private key if a third-party build of the software will not run without being signed by that key.

Now, another common misinterpretation that came up at the GPLv3 launch was that this meant that if you had set up your system to require signed code that you would have to make your private key available. This isn't the case. The only requirement is that a third party must be able to build and run the system without your private key. If this requires them to generate their own private key, that's perfectly acceptable.

If a GPLv3ed program cannot run without a specific private key, that private key must be made available. That's all the license says. Developers are not required to disclose private keys that they use to sign code.