Re: Move to LGPL3

[Alexander Shaduri <ashaduri gmail com>]

Hi all,

Having studied the FSF licenses and their restrictions, I think
it would be reasonable to re-license GTK+ under the LGPLv3
(or later) + GPLv2 linking exception (or, alternatively, simply
multi-license it under LGPLv3 / GPLv2).

This method allows people to link GTK+ with any of the following:
- LGPLv2.1-only (since it's compatible with "GPLv2 or later");
- LGPLv3 or later;
- GPLv2 (because of the linking exception);
- GPLv3 (because LGPLv3 is explicitly compatible with GPLv3).

Notes:
Re-licensing GTK+ won't pose any problems - the current
license allows it to be redistributed as LGPLv3/GPLv2 as a whole,
so no problem there.

The main reason to move to LGPLv3 is usually the patent protection.
By using the GPLv2 (as opposed to LGPLv2.1) exception, GTK+
will limit the damage by forcing the proprietary folk to use LGPLv3
(since most of them can't use GPLv2), so the patent protection is
still in effect.

I always wonder how the programmer has to be a lawyer too these days. :)

Thanks,
Alexander