[ccache] GPLv3

[Joel Rosdahl]

On Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:12:45 +0000
William S Fulton <wsf at fultondesigns.co.uk> wrote:

> [...]
> As the copyright holders have already licensed it under GPLv2 or later
> ("later version" is the key point here) and as GPL is copyleft, anyone
> can take the source and license it as GPLv3 or GPLv3 or later, so there
> is nothing stopping you or anyone else from doing this should they so
> wish. Of course, it would be polite to inform the contributors and
> discussion on this mailing list partly goes down that route, but you
> don't need consent... you only need to conform to the license and that
> includes redistributing under a later version.

I think it's the "politeness part" that bugs me, at least in theory, regardless
of what the licenses actually imply. If I have created, say, some
GPLv2+-licensed code called goodstuff.c, I would be a bit annoyed if I found
the file in projectX and the file had a GPLv3 header but was otherwise
unmodified, since people who stumble on goodstuff.c in projectX then can't use
it (or rather: don't know they can use it) in their GPLv2-only project even
though my original code was GPLv2+. If the projectX guys have changed
goodstuff.c, then I wouldn't mind since they of course may decide to GPLv3(+)
their changes and thereby the "combination" of goodstuff.c and the changes.

That said, this is all theory, and I'm not debating what the licenses say, only
what I think should be common sense. I don't see any problem in practise in the
ccache case, so I'll switch ccache to GPLv3+, unless anyone strongly objects.
Contributors, be informed!

-- Joel