With the "or later" version it's a concern that in the future someone nefarious could gain control of the FSF, and publish a GPL removing most of the copyleft provisions.

On the other hand, if Linux had used the "or later" version it could have helped prevent TiVoization.

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pabs3 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

According to Conservancy; Tivo didn't do "Tivoization", the GPLv3 doesn't prevent what Tivo actually did, and both GPLv2/GPLv3 prevent "Tivoization".

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...

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bonoboTP 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No because tivo could take it under the gpl2. It's not an auto upgrade. The new version is optional.

	▲	gzread 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		New distros and modules could be v3-or-later.

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gzread 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Linus now has come to support Tivoization. I presume this has something to do with where his salary comes from.

	▲	jmalicki 17 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Linus was a little liberal about the restrictions of software freedom (boy is that an awkward phrase) even early on - e.g. his general acceptance of "binary blobs" in the kernel and such for things like NVidia kernel drivers, to the chagrin of much harder-core free software people.
	▲	kube-system 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Anti-Tivoization is a pretty radical idea that restricts the rights of hardware developers for the benefit of software developers. Linus doesn't really care about strong-arming hardware developers the way RMS does. He just cares about the software.
	▲	samtheprogram 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Linus never cared about that use case of the GPL. He cared about the source code sharing.

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hmry 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> if Linux had used the "or later" version it could have helped prevent TiVoization

Only if the hardware manufacturer used a combined work of Linux and some GPLv3-only code, no? Otherwise, if Linux was GPLv2-or-later, they could just use it under GPLv2 terms and tivoize.

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sellmesoap 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

GPL Vader license, pray I do not alter the deal any further.