Re: Relicensing Nautilus to GPLv3+

[Carlos Soriano <csoriano protonmail com>]

Thanks Michael, looks interesting and seems there are enough reasons to upgrade files too.

We can take a look after we "assume" the project license is gpl3+ and no problem arises.

Best,

Carlos Soriano

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: Relicensing Nautilus to GPLv3+

Local Time: May 25, 2017 2:07 PM

UTC Time: May 25, 2017 12:07 PM

From: mike catanzaro gmail com

To: Carlos Soriano <csoriano protonmail com>

Sébastien Wilmet <swilmet gnome org>, desktop-devel-list gnome org <desktop-devel-list gnome org>

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 5:10 AM, Carlos Soriano via desktop-devel-list

<desktop-devel-list gnome org> wrote:

> Aha!

> I still get different opinions from different people on that. But

> that makes sense to me. Probably makes sense to relicense the files

> too at some point, but that would be a later decision.

> Do you know any advantage of relicensing the files themselves?

>

> Best,

> Carlos Soriano

The advantages of relicensing are:

* Easier to copy code into Nautilus from other GNOME projects. You

cannot currently copy code into Nautilus from the handful of projects

that have already transitioned to GPLv3+.

* Less confusion. It's confusing for the project license to be GPLv3+

while nearly all of the source code is licensed GPLv2+.

* Promote stronger, more effective copyleft. Many people believe GPLv3

is a better license than GPLv2. See [1].

This is why I've relicensed all the source files in Epiphany.

The disadvantage is that after relicensing, it will become harder to

copy code from Nautilus into other GNOME projects. You cannot copy into

GPLv2+ projects unless you relicense the other project to GPLv3+ or go

back in the commit history to before the relicensing. This is only a

transition problem, because it can be solved by upgrading the license

of the other project.

Michael

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.en.html