Re: GPLv3 or later -- Lispref files refers to text in lispref.text

Andreas Roehler writes: > Hmm, maybe could someone help me with an example? I don't understand what example you want. Under U.S. law, it's absolutely clear. If there is no license, all rights are reserved to the rightsholder. Now, a license, like a contract, may be implicitly or verbally granted, but if you don't have written evidence it's your word against theirs, and the author will surely win in that case. If there is an explicitly written license, but it's not GPLv3- compatible, then you are out of luck. Again, there may be implicit or verbal grant of permission to upgrade, but you would lose in court if the rightsholder chose to withdraw it. I really don't think it is *ethically* right to *assume* permission, either. There are any number of people who have deliberately chosen, for one reason or another, to license their code as GPLv2 (or even GPLv1!) *only*.

unclear, we should make serious efforts to determine who owns the code or content, and get their permission. If that turns out to be impossible (at least two of our significant contributors have already left this vale of tears, for example), there might be grounds for doing something unilateral. But the only thing that protects our code from misuse[1] is copyright law.

important that we respect it. Footnotes: [1] According to many of our contributors; me, I'd be happier with a permissive license.