Re: Move to LGPL3

["Brian J. Tarricone" <bjt23 cornell edu>]

Yevgen Muntyan wrote:
> Alexander Shaduri wrote:
> > 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).
> >   
>
> But you can't do that. Gtk is *LGPL*-2, so you can't
> make it GPL-2 (unless you convince all contributors,
> including aliens and dead).

Yes, you can.  Quoth the LGPLv2.1:

"You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public 
License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. [...] 
(If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public 
License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you 
wish.)"

Personally I think this clause is kinda ridiculous, but it's there, 
nonetheless.  Any LGPLv#-covered program can be relicensed as a 
GPLv#-or-later program as well.  Interestingly, my reading of this shows 
that, even if you license under "LGPLv2.1-only", someone can relicense 
as GPLv2-or-later, or GPLv3-or-later, or even GPLv3-only.

	-brian