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MySQL Changes License To Avoid GPLv3
munchola writes "MySQL has quietly changed the license it uses for its database to avoid being forced to move to the forthcoming GPLv3. CBRonline is reporting that Kaj Arno, MySQL VP of community relations, revealed the license change on his blog, noting it was made 'in order to make it an option, not an obligation for the company to move to GPLv3.'"
We are unable to contact some contributors to get their ok on using GPLv3,
AFAIK, the GPLv3 is backwards compatible with GPLv2, so you can move part of the files to GPLv3 and leave the rest under GPLv2. As a result, effectively, the entire work would be under GPLv3, even though some source files are still under GPLv2.
and rather than disrespect their contributions by pushing the bottom line of v3, we're going to have to keep using v2
You don't have to do that; you're merely rationalizing your own agenda.
v3 is about pushing an agenda within a license from what I can tell, rather than sticking to what it is, a license. It's their license, fine, but pushing their own goals through
"Their goals" and "their agenda" is simply to keep the source code that's published under the GPL open, free, and available. The GPLv2 had some bugs in that regard (vis Novell/Microsoft deal, Tivo, etc.), and the GPLv3 attempts to fix those bugs as best it can. Their goals and their agenda has not changed one bit; if you don't like it with GPLv3, you shouldn't have picked GPLv2, with or without the "or later" clause.
By distancing yourself from those goals, one has to conclude that it isn't your goal to keep Adium source code open, free, and available. So, for example, it wouldn't apparently bother you if Apple or Microsoft or some Chinese manufacturer takes your source code and distributes the binary without distributing usable source along with it, or if Microsoft slips in a piece of patented code (through an intermediary) and then a couple of years later demands licensing fees from anybody other than Novell customers, because that's what the bugs in the GPLv2 amount to.
Why aren't you being honest then and switch from GPLv2 (which gives the appearance of preserving those freedoms but can't quite do it because of bugs) to the BSD license (which explicitly doesn't preserve those freedoms)?
I agree with you. Don't mind the astroturfing RMS losers religious crusade. I'm hoping for a GPL that avoids the silly v3 agenda, puts RMS in his place, and gets back to what makes the GPL great.