On Thu, 29 May 2014 09:18:43 -0400
Richard Fontana <rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 02:47:31AM -0600, Eric Smith wrote:
> IANAL, but if the added GPL3 code is, as Richard said, an "isolated
> utility" that is not linked to any of the GPL2+ code (an assumption
> about the nature of an "isolated utility"), then isn't this
"mere
> aggregation"?
I didn't say anything about an isolated utility, but now I see that
Tim did. So my original assumption was that there was something more
than 'mere' aggregation, but if that's not true then the answer and
analysis are different (and easier). Or rather the end result is
objectively the same, but the way you look at it might be different.
I'm not sure if this is an important distinction but I figure that it
probably wouldn't hurt to make sure:
The utility itself will be isolated in a directory of the main project.
However, that utility will read several other gpl2+ licensed source
files in order to generate our documentation.
> I'm not arguing that there's anything wrong with
relicensing the
> GPL2+ source to GPL3, only that I don't think it automatically
> occurs in the described scenario. If it was desired to relicense
> the GPL2+ source to GPL3, I think that should be done explicitly,
> by actually changing the license notices.
I basically agree; the idea of implicit relicensing is something that
was invented to reconcile what one group of people say about license
compatibility and GPL interpretation with what another group of people
(which probably overlaps somewhat, maybe even significantly, with the
first group) actually do.
Thank you all for your input on this. I really appreciate it.
Tim