Re: GNUstep Licensing.... GPLv2.1+ for apps instead of GPLv3

[Stefan Bidi]

Greg,
I've been staying away from the discussion for the most part because at the end of the day the question of licensing and hosting is one of opinion.

However, you made one statement here that kind of made me skeptical. Please be more clear about the statement, "since it is impacting us." How is it impacting us at this moment? Are companies and other possible contributors shying away from the project due to the license? Would these companies and/or contributors be more inclined to contribute to the project if portions of it were GPLv2 over GPLv3? Do they have a history our contributing to projects under GPLv2 over v3? Have these contributors submitted any patches to GPL projects?

The reason I all these questions is because I do not see why a company or contributor would be so fervently again the GPLv3 but not v2.  If it is am entity that has goaltending contributed to an educational license, such as BSD or MIT, be more inclined to contribute to a project licensed in such a manner? If so, relicensing to GPLv2 gains us nothing as the licensing objections would be still be present.

This particular decision does not affect me any as my major contribution, CoreBase, is already LGPLv2.1.

Over the decade that I've been involved with this project, beginning as a user and now as a contributor, I've read arguments about how a trivial solution, such as this one, would increase contribution. Yet, the number of active project contributors have remained the same. I understand the need trying new things, but contributions were not reduced when the tools were moved to v3. It could even be argued that the contributor pool has increased since that move. I know of many who joined the project after the license change.

Anyway, I just wanted to come in.

Stefan