On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 3:30 PM, Mattia Verga <mattia.verga(a)tiscali.it> wrote:
I'm very confused on how to check if a program is GPLv3 or
GPLv3+.
Looking at
gnu.org website it seems (to me) that there's no difference
between the two: there's only one license text
(
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt) and the declaration to insert in
source headers says "either version 3 of the License, or (at your option)
any later version" (
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.en.html)
So how to distinguish between the two?
I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
Exactly the "or (at your option) any later version" text. If that is
present, the code is GPLv3+ because it grants rights to use a later
version of the GPL. If that text is not present, it is GPLv3. There
is only one instance of each version of the GPL license itself and the
"+" moniker simply reflects the fact that the author of the code may
have granted use of future versions of the GPL via that statement in
the copyright/licensing text.
josh