Hakre's GPL license debate

[Ryan]

I don't think Hakre intended this as a debate when he opened the ticket, but there's one heck of an interesting discussion going on in Trac at the moment which if I've read correctly could potentially allow us to treat WordPress as GPLv3 in the future:
http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/14685

I'd often wondered this myself, but never brought it up as I didn't want to open another GPL can of worms, plus, the license is in the main folder so I guessed that would over-ride the "copyright notice", but in retrospect, perhaps not. I'd be surprised if the license.txt file included with WordPress was changed any time soon though.

[wpmuguru]

The license that has come with WordPress since day one has been the GPLv2. The statement that was changed directed the reader to the enclosed license.txt. Changing the wording of the sentence does not constitute a change in license so long as it still refers the reader to license.txt and the content of license.txt hasn't changed.

[Ryan]

That has presumably been the interpretation of almost everyone all along, but I think the issue here is that the copyright clearly states that the license is "GPL", not explicity "GPLv2", it does link to the license.txt file which is explicit, but depending on the way you read it, that could be construed as an example of a license rather than the explicit license that WordPress is under. This always seemed odd to me as my understanding as always been that anything which is listed as "GPL" is considered to be licensed across all different versions of GPL licenses anyway - I think there might be something on the Freedom Software Foundation site about that.

The confusion lies in that the copyright notice does not explicitly state the license, it merely links to a license but states a different one (or superset of).

It wouldn't take much work to contact the authors of the code that is specifically marked GPL v2 only. Doing so would give people the ability to use WordPress under the terms of the GPL version 3 (or any version 2 or higher). With a little more work, we could get the "GPL v2 or higher" code licensed as simply GPL.

[chipbennett]

Hakre is right: a bundled license file is not the legally binding license declaration; the copyright notice is - and the copyright notice has always said "GPL", not "GPLv2", not "GPLv2 or any later version", not "GPLv2 (you may NOT assume any later version)" - just "GPL".

It doesn't matter to me, one way or the other. But to people like Hakre, and Otto, the matter is incredibly important - and I'm glad to see that their concerns were taken seriously, and that Mark Jaquith reverted the change.

[hakre]

I was not aware this thread existed here, thanks for the feedback.

Maybe I should make my point of view more transparent as this can clarify some things as some time has passed as well.

First of all I always referred to the license.txt that ships with wordpress. As chip bennet pointed out, that license file declares that the license declaration of the program (here readme.html) specifies the version, not the license file itself. This is perfectly valid as it's clearly written inside the license.txt that ships with wordpress.

So the debate in the trac ticket showed that some people have not read the license wordpress ships with in full. It looks like that even after the discussion in trac (which was not very straight foward I must admit), it's not obvious to everybody what this was about.

The license that has come with wordpress since day one has been the GPLv2. The statement that was changed directed the reader to the enclosed license.txt. Changing the wording of the sentence does not constitute a change in license so long as it still refers the reader to license.txt and the content of license.txt hasn't changed.

I take this statement exemplary, so wpmuguru, please do not feel offended.

The license-text that ships with wordpress is indeed a copy of the GNU General Public License in its second version. So nobody says it isn't as this is an obvious fact. But in difference to the thinking that the sentence related to it (the so called license or copyright notice) doesn't specify the license version, the GPL v2 license.txt states the opposite: The license notice does define the compatible versions and not the other way round.

So why might this be important for some core developers? First of all, some made the mistake to announce Wordpress is licensed under GPL v2 only. But it never was. This was not visible for those until I opened the ticket.

So this debate started a process of realization for some wordpress users. I think the best way to deal with this is dynamically: To rethink the own position, accept errors in it and learn something new. Because we're not loosing, we're gaining in this. It looks like that this process can take longer as from point to point it can be seen that it still is a contradictory point for some persons.

So this is not an issue of interpretation. This was always something that was written in license.txt clearly. So in case you're unsure what's binding, then just read the license.txt which ships with wordpress. That's the exact reason why it's important to put license files into the packages, so that users can know about their rights.

I'm just one of these users. I might do other stuff with wordpress then others but when it comes to the license, we're all equal. That's the software freedom we share. And that's how it works. We need to help the neighbor with his blog? That's fine we can do so! Even in a legal sense. Here I've got a great combo of plugin and theme, take it!

The pure fact that Wordpress can be redistributed under any version of the GPL might have some unexpected and unwanted implications for certain persons. Probably because they were wrong. So for some this might really be a very important point that wordpress is licensed in the exact way they ever thought (w/o reading the license in full).

Naturally the situation allows Otto to re-distribute a wordpress derivate under GPL v2 while other can do so under GPL v1 or v3 or later. If you don't want to introduce limits for your users, choose GPL v2 or any later version for a starter.

Why is this "or any later version" clause that important? Because otherwise you would need to ask all copyright holders to change the license later on. You can never achieve this for wordpress practically so you would be always bound to that version. This endangers the future development of a project. That's why. If you want to endanger future development, well, then ... :) Who said worpdress is GPL v2 only?

[andreasnrb]

I thought the license was GPLv2 I would never had contributed code otherwise. And I'm probably not alone in that regard.

[hakre]

I thought the license was GPLv2 I would never had contributed code otherwise. And I'm probably not alone in that regard.

That's most certainly the case. Even I think you made a mistake and you should have read the GPL v2 license as I assume you did not blindly submitted the code, I can actually understand you somehow. And that is not only because afterwards we are always more clever.

It is because copyright and license is not clear for submitting code. It is made hard for users who contribute code to wordpress to learn about the copyright and license of the code, especially if they are are not firm with copyright and licensing like most of us. When you edit the concrete file, most files in the wordpress package do not have legal header comments that state the title of the work, copyright and license as it is normally common. It's the same in trac where you upload the changed code in form of a patch. There is no info about copyright and license as well.

Users who contribute code to wordpress might actually not know under which license they are doing that. And they might not be aware that that code they just uploaded might have their employees or other copyrights. That hurts both: the project and the contributor. This is in fact one of the biggest issues I currently see in wordpress licensing. It is important that users who give code know about the constraints otherwise this can be very annoying for them. I reported this in the wp-hackers mailinglist with a write-up in my WordPress Licensing Issues Series: Submitting Code (Day 6) while in various discussions I became more and more aware.

And for those who contributed code "by mistake" this can be very annoying. I mean do I want my code to be redistributed under GPL v1 that bears the risk to become non-free because of the shortcomings in the license? No, that's one-way and I don't like that. I want to see the freedom of the software preserved.

[andreasnrb]

My impression has always been that WordPress was GPLv2 and had excluded the any later version part.
That is what we've been "told" thats what I've conditioned my brain to know.
I know the GPLv2 I've read it countless times but for some reason my lazy brain has gone with the explanation most heard and separated the WP GPL from the official GPL. Like not seeing the forest for all the trees.

[Ryan]

... my lazy brain has gone with the explanation most heard and separated the WP GPL from the official GPL. Like not seeing the forest for all the trees.

I'm not sure if that's a typo or a misunderstanding on my or your part, but just in case ... there's no difference between the "WordPress GPL" and the "official GPL", they're both the same thing. This is an issue over what license WordPress is under due to the wording of the copyright notice in the code. Copyright notice says just "GPL", license bundled with the software explicitly says "GPL v2".

[andreasnrb]

I know there isn't. I'm not talking about factual things. My impression has been that WP is GPLv2 only and can not be any later or earlier version and that impression was wrong. Thats what I mean by "separated" WP GPL from actual GPL.
If you see it as the emperor has no clothes it makes more sense. I'm not saying it was rational.