Re: [Libreoffice] Minor translation, commented code removal

At 12:12pm -0400 Mon, 25 Oct 2010, Michael Meeks wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-10-25 at 10:48 -0400, Kevin Hunter wrote:
> > The short answer is no, I'm not scared of "all future versions",
> > but on principal, I will not blindly trust a document that I (no
> > one!) have yet to see.
>
> Fair enough :-) We're still thinking this through I guess. How would
> you feel about The Document Foundation (as/when it exists) being your
> 'proxy' for future versions ?

It's not perfect, but I have to draw the pragmatic line somewhere, don't 
I?  Yes, in it's current iteration and existence, I would be willing to 
assign the Document Foundation as my proxy for 'future versions'.  I 
realize that this is effectively code assignment, but feels more 
semantically "the right thing do" than does the "all future versions" route.

As an aside, I generally find it difficult to know when to be pedantic 
about semantics (and I believe that there /is/ a time to be pedantic).

> Ultimately of course - if you think GPLv4 will remove freedoms, the
> question is why anyone would switch from GPLv3 ;-) I assume you're
> more inclined to be worried about removing restrictions in a way that
> might impact freedom (?).

Right on, and that's perhaps one of the defining differences between the 
GPL and the MPL, yes?  The GPL binds the /licensees/ whereas the MPL 
/releases the right to *all* licensees/.  I am eventually and always 
worried about the interplay of freedom and restriction (which are not 
necessarily mutually exclusive).  You get from where I'm coming, I think.

> > In the shorter term, if that does not work for the LO project, let
> > me point out that I am hardly a major contributor.
>
> Sure, sure - but we would love you to become one :-) I still tend to
> (for all its faults) think that a plus license has some real strengths
> for future re-licensing.

:-) Convince me!  I clearly am missing a large detail given that so many 
projects have used the "and any later version" clause since at least 
GPLv2 (when I came in).

Cheers,

Kevin