Re: Relicensing Nautilus to GPLv3+

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Tue, 2017-07-18 at 07:56 +0200, Alexandre Franke wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 10:23 PM, Carlos Soriano via
> desktop-devel-list <desktop-devel-list gnome org> wrote:
> > This is done now in
> > https://git.gnome.org/browse/nautilus/commit/?id=365ec7f7ac1cec51dc
> > 0248dd05b17cb78252a788
>
> I don’t think that’s sufficient though. Putting a LICENSE file in the
> project directory just addresses the “You should have received a
> copy”
> provision, but doesn’t effectively place the code under that license.
> You could even have several license files if parts of your project
> are
> under different licenses.
>
> That license file you put in your repository also states that you
> should attach a notice to the program. It can take several form but
> the recommended one is in the header of your source. In fact, there
> is
> already such a notice and it claims that the software is GPLv2+
> (https://git.gnome.org/browse/nautilus/tree/src/nautilus-main.c?id=36
> 5ec7f7ac1cec51dc0248dd05b17cb78252a788).

That's fine. The license of the compound work just has to be compatible
with the individual files' licenses, it doesn't need to be the exact
same one.

For example, you can have a project mixing GPLv2+, GPLv3+ and BSD
licensed files, and choose to have the compound work be GPLv3+. That
also tells contributors that any new files in the project should be
compatible with that overall license.

> This brings us to another point: do you intend to use GPLv3 or
> GPLv3+?
> The notice should be explicit about it (again, as suggested by the
> license you copied to your project).
>
> Cheers,