Re: [gNewSense-users] KFV Flow

[Bake Timmons]

>     - I thought we established that GNU GPL without a version equals GNU GPLv2

> - I didn't know that it was established that GNU GPL without a version equals 
> to GNU GPLv2 but i think is better if we
> confirm that is GNU GPLv2 from the copyright holder. If you check closer when 
> there is no one to ask to confirm, it goes to
> the global kernel license, GNU GPLv2.
> I think is the correct way to proceed, maybe not the faster.

Faster or slower is the issue neither for me nor I would guess for some
of the other members on this list who have publicly doubted the need to
contact licensors for this case.  It goes beyond that.

In this need to seek clarification of the licensor's intent, we cannot
mean which *version* they intended.  For them to insist on any specific
versions would simply *contradict* what "under the GPL" means--that the
choice is the licensee's.  Instead, I think the only possible
clarification is in a question such as, "Did you intend by the phrase
'under the GPL' that the choice of version is the licensee's, such as
them choosing GPLv2?"  If they did not intend that choice, then indeed,
we do have a problem.  Perhaps another question could be, "Is it OK if
we choose GPLv2 for our copy of your software?"  But "Did you mean
GPLv2?", while similar, is not at all a valid kind of question here,
IMO.

I assume that for there to be a question in this case yet not in the
"GPLv2 or later" case simply means that we lack confidence in the
clarity of the "under the GPL" language.

Since KFV Flow is as much a KFV policy summary as I have seen from
gNewSense, I would recommend at the very least changing the question in
it from "Which *version* intended?" to "Was the licensee's *choice* of
version intended?"