Re: Concerning uniliateral decision making with respect to the coreutils package

Soren Stoutner <[email protected]> Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:30:57 -0700

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.general
Organization	Debian
Message-ID	<2009552.taCxCBeP46@soren-desktop>

On Monday, July 13, 2026 11:36:42 AM Mountain Standard Time Bjørn Mork wrote:
> Soren Stoutner <[email protected]> writes:
> > What are the concerns with the GPLv3?  The only concerns I have ever heard
> > raised are by people who fundamentally disagree with the principles of the
> > DFSG and don’t like that the GPLv3 enforces them.
> 
> You're not very good at googling previous discussions, are you?
> 

Perhaps my original statement wasn’t clear enough.  I have ready many things 
that have been written on this subject.  I have never read anything 
*persuasive*.  Everything I have ever read against the GPLv3 was written by 
someone who didn’t like some aspect of the DFSG and didn’t like that the GPLv3 
enforces much of what is in the DFSG.

The purpose of my question was to see if, perhaps, there is some new argument 
that has not previously been put forward about why the GPLv3 is bad.  If there 
is, I would be happy to read it with an open mind.

To be very clear, I have no problem with any other DFSG license, and I am fine 
if developers choose to license their work under any of them.  The reason why 
I made the original comment is that it was suggested that it is bad if someone 
were to choose the GPLv3 for *reasons that were not stated but were claimed 
were obvious*.  They are not obvious, and I do not believe such reasons exist, 
although the FSF does have a thoughtful analysis of when they, themselves, 
recommend a licenses different than the GPLv3.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html

However, if there is some reason why a developer should never use the GPLv3, 
please put it forward.

-- 
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]

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