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

[Jerry James]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 10:50 AM, Andreas Roehler
<andreas.roehler at online.de> wrote:
> BTW, can't conceive any real legal hindrance from relicensing
> files with GPLv3, because the rights of the authors are
> not touched.
>
> The copyright-holder may licence as (s)he will, you will not
> diminish this right.
>
> IMHO you may distribute free software, if no license is
> specified, with licence GPLv3, as it affects only your
> distro, not the original copyright.

If no license is specified, how do you know it is free software?

Also, if an author specifies a specific set of rights to be granted,
we cannot grant additional rights without the permission of the
author, or else we have indeed "touched" the rights of that author.
So, no, we can't just relicense everything under the GPLv3 unless we
have been granted all pertinent rights by the authors.

Sorry to have not been following up on my own list of issues to check.
 Real Life has been a bear for a couple of years now (although it's
largely self-inflicted, so I can't complain too much).  Can we put up
a canonical copy of that list somewhere, so whenever someone has a
little free time, they can grab an item and check it out?
-- 
Jerry James
http://loganjerry.googlepages.com/