[MPlayer-cvslog] license wars!

[Rich Felker]

On Wed, Dec 19, 2007 at 01:35:57PM +0100, Aurelien Jacobs wrote:
> > The LICENSE file is pretty clear about the subject:
> > 
> >   9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new
> > versions of the General Public License from time to time.  Such new
> > versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may
> > differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
> > 
> > Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program
> > specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and
> > "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and
> > conditions either of that version or of any later version published
> > by the Free Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a
> > version number of this License, you may choose any version ever
> > published by the Free Software Foundation.
> 
> This indeed is pretty clear.
>  - The program does specify a version number (see second line of LICENSE)
>  - The program don't specify anywhere "any later version"
> 
> => MPlayer as a whole is under GPLv2 only !

As of present this may be correct since some files may still say "v2
only". However, your reasoning is utterly idiotic. Obviously the
LICENSE distributed with the program will always display one
particular version number; this does not negate the clause of the
license that says the recipient may choose other versions.

Applying a license is not just a matter of putting a file named
LICENSE in the repo, especially when multiple authorship is involved.
Copyright on sources needs to be documented and the author's licensing
choice needs to be made clear, e.g. "This file is licensed under ..."

Historically MPlayer had no such notices, and the whole program was
just assumed to be under invalid/infringing/nondistributable status
(in Arpi's original version :) or generic "GPL" with no attention to
version. According to Diego, whom I specifically asked about this, the
MPlayer release documentation never specified a version of the GPL,
while the website did at one point say "GPL v2". The info on the
website was added by Diego (in recent times, as I understand it) and
reflected the fact that some code in MPlayer was[/is?] under v2 only,
not any decision by the team to license the whole program only under
v2 in the future (in which case older versions would still be
available under any version of the GPL).

Personally I find GPL v3 bloated and distasteful. But I also see no
good reason to play these stupid license war games the FSF has become
so fond of when the intent is just that the code remain free. My view
is that we should always license under the broadest possible copyleft.

As for the uncertainty of future versions, not only does the FSF have
a mandate to maintain working copyleft in all future GPL versions;
they also have numerous contracts to this effect with contributors who
have assigned code to the FSF, e.g. in Emacs and other ©FSF
projects. Should the FSF ever be "subverted" or whatever nonsense
conspiracy theories people want to propose, they'd have to face
lawsuits from all these contributors over breach of contract for the
copyright-assignment contracts. They would also likely face litigation
from all users of the GPL.

As far as I'm concerned, I'll explicitly state here that any and all
code I've written for MPlayer may be used under any version of the GPL
ever published. Anyone wanting to add such license headers to the
files I've written is welcome to do so. It is my hope that MPlayer
will maintain a policy of "GPL v2 or later" indefinitely.

Rich