Quoting Michael Schumacher <schumaml@xxxxxx>: > At the moment I'm not even sure if GIMP should be licensed under > GPLv3 without a much better understanding of the license. > For example, the fact that it is now impossible to use GPLv2-only > libraries in plug-in wasn't considered at all. It's not such much > the fact that we can't use them anymore, rather the problem of no > one even thinking about it when we changed the license version to v3. If a plug-in were to link to a GPLv2-only library, that plug-in (having to be licensed as GPLv2-only) would not have been acceptable for incorporation into the GIMP project. To my understanding, it has always been (at least since GIMP 0.56) required that code contributed to GIMP be licensed in a manner compatible with "GPLv2 (or later)" licensing terms. If GIMP had included GPLv2-only code then GIMP would no longer have been distributable under "GPLv2 (or later)" terms. At the time the licensing change to GPLv3 was originally proposed, I spent a couple of hours inspecting the GIMP source for any instances of GPLv2-only licensing and could not find any. As one should expect, all GPLed code in GIMP offered the option to use a later version. If any such code were present, or if GIMP had any GPLv2-only dependencies, there would have already existed a licensing conflict with GIMP's "GPLv2 (or later)" licensing, independent any consideration of GPLv3. Since GPLv2-only plug-ins have never been an option for inclusion in the GIMP project -- and since third-party plug-ins are permitted to be licensed under GPLv2-only terms (and thus link with GPLv2-only libraries) -- I do not see that GIMP switching to GPLv3 poses any new problems in this regard. _______________________________________________ Gimp-developer mailing list Gimp-developer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
