glibc 2.2.4 Release Notes

Mon Aug 20 20:29:20 UTC 2001

On Mon, Aug 20, 2001 at 09:38:18PM +0200, Werner Koch wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Aug 2001 18:10:29 +0200, joack  said:
> 
> > Does anybody know more about this? Does the "any" in the 
> > licenses really work the way Drepper claims?
> 
> Without the "or any later version" it would be highly problematic to
> change the license in case a bug has been identified in that license.
> This is what we call in software "easily extendible".

Well, you may fix the licence, but the user may use the older version as well,
he is not required by the licence to use only the newer one.

So we're only protected against bugs that limit the use of the licence...

> And Ulrich forgot to mention that the (L)GPL also says, that new
> revisions of the license will be in the same spirit. 

Ah.. The spirit... Well, the GPL exists to protect the creator and the
program, it would not be necessary if people were true to the spirit of things.

> I guess he had some bad days and didn't thought when he started that
> flamefest.

Perhaps, but the reasons for his bad days are the SC, RMS, etc. And he has
a few valid points. I didn't see the rest of the discussion, so I can't really
comment on anything.

hugs
-- 
Luciano Rocha, strange at nsk.yi.org

The trouble with computers is that they do what you tell them, not what
you want.
                -- D. Cohen