How to deal with typo "2" instead of "2.1" for "GNU Lesser General Public" in headers?

[Friedrich W. H. Kossebau]

Happy New Year, all,

though I just made a not too happy discovery:
there are quite some files in the Calligra codebase which have a somehow
broken license header which names the "GNU Lesser General Public" in "version
2 of the License"...
which does not exist, there is only 2.1 as minimum version (2 was the version
of the "Library" variant).

Seems someone once adapted the header from "GNU Library General Public" to
"GNU Lesser General Public" but forgot the license number, and then people
happily copied that header over since ages without noticing. Only a few files
have a correct "GNU Lesser General Public" header.

Question:
can it be assumed (and should we) that all contributors actually agreed to the
"2.1" version of the "Lesser" given there is no "2" version?
Especially as at least all files I checked also contain "or (at your option)
any later version.", where "2.1" would be a theoretical later version of "2"?

To be on the really safe side I guess one would need to get all contributors
explicitely agree to the correct version. But pragmatically I would just
assume people very much were in agreement with 2.1, and this can be considered
just a typo.

So would anyone strongly advise against simply applying a patch to all those
license headers and change the "2" to "2.1"?

Cheers
Friedrich

[Boudewijn Rempt]

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
can it be assumed (and should we) that all contributors actually agreed to the
"2.1" version of the "Lesser" given there is no "2" version?

Yes.

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
Especially as at least all files I checked also contain "or (at your option)
any later version.", where "2.1" would be a theoretical later version of "2"?
To be on the really safe side I guess one would need to get all contributors
explicitely agree to the correct version. But pragmatically I would just
assume people very much were in agreement with 2.1, and this can be considered
just a typo.
So would anyone strongly advise against simply applying a patch to all those
license headers and change the "2" to "2.1"?

Not me.

Boud

[Jaroslaw Staniek]

Post by Boudewijn Rempt

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
can it be assumed (and should we) that all contributors actually agreed to the
"2.1" version of the "Lesser" given there is no "2" version?

Yes.

Oh, good find.

Yes, except for new libraries, the intent is that any new file
inherits license of other files, and from the library. So any usage
non-existing license leads to this conclusion - it was a mistake.

Post by Boudewijn Rempt

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
Especially as at least all files I checked also contain "or (at your option)
any later version.", where "2.1" would be a theoretical later version of "2"?
To be on the really safe side I guess one would need to get all contributors
explicitely agree to the correct version. But pragmatically I would just
assume people very much were in agreement with 2.1, and this can be considered
just a typo.
So would anyone strongly advise against simply applying a patch to all those
license headers and change the "2" to "2.1"?

Not me.

Not me. Is it hard to find all emails we need?

Post by Boudewijn Rempt
Boud
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--
regards, Jaroslaw Staniek

KDE:
: A world-wide network of software engineers, artists, writers, translators
: and facilitators committed to Free Software development - http://kde.org
Calligra Suite:
: A graphic art and office suite - http://calligra.org
Kexi:
: A visual database apps builder - http://calligra.org/kexi
Qt Certified Specialist:
: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek

[David Faure]

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
Happy New Year, all,
there are quite some files in the Calligra codebase which have a somehow
broken license header which names the "GNU Lesser General Public" in
"version 2 of the License"...
which does not exist, there is only 2.1 as minimum version (2 was the
version of the "Library" variant).
Seems someone once adapted the header from "GNU Library General Public" to
"GNU Lesser General Public" but forgot the license number

Oops. You know what? This might very well have been me.

I remember hearing about the license name change, and applying it to the new
files I was writing, and I didn't know that it came with a version number
increase as well. In fact even now I wouldn't really have been sure about the
fact that Library=2 and Lesser=2.1.

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
, and then people
happily copied that header over since ages without noticing. Only a few
files have a correct "GNU Lesser General Public" header.
can it be assumed (and should we) that all contributors actually agreed to
the "2.1" version of the "Lesser" given there is no "2" version?

Technically I'm not sure, e.g. I thought this was version 2 renamed.
However I never heard of someone agreeing with LGPL v2 and disagreeing with

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
Especially as at least all files I checked also contain "or (at your option)
any later version.", where "2.1" would be a theoretical later version of "2"?

Well, in that case that's even explicitly allowed, then.

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
To be on the really safe side I guess one would need to get all contributors
explicitely agree to the correct version. But pragmatically I would just
assume people very much were in agreement with 2.1, and this can be
considered just a typo.
So would anyone strongly advise against simply applying a patch to all those
license headers and change the "2" to "2.1"?

Being pragmatic, I would say yes. I really can't see a KDE contributor coming
back and saying "I wanted my code to be 2 only, not 2.1", given that the only
relevant difference between these two seems to be the license naming
(according to wikipedia; I didn't do a diff ;).

[Friedrich W. H. Kossebau]

Post by Friedrich W. H. Kossebau
Happy New Year, all,
there are quite some files in the Calligra codebase which have a somehow
broken license header which names the "GNU Lesser General Public" in
"version 2 of the License"...
which does not exist, there is only 2.1 as minimum version (2 was the
version of the "Library" variant).
Seems someone once adapted the header from "GNU Library General Public" to
"GNU Lesser General Public" but forgot the license number, and then people
happily copied that header over since ages without noticing. Only a few
files have a correct "GNU Lesser General Public" header.
can it be assumed (and should we) that all contributors actually agreed to
the "2.1" version of the "Lesser" given there is no "2" version?
Especially as at least all files I checked also contain "or (at your option)
any later version.", where "2.1" would be a theoretical later version of "2"?
To be on the really safe side I guess one would need to get all contributors
explicitely agree to the correct version. But pragmatically I would just
assume people very much were in agreement with 2.1, and this can be
considered just a typo.
So would anyone strongly advise against simply applying a patch to all those
license headers and change the "2" to "2.1"?

Seems noone does, and everyone agrees it can be considered a typo. So will
prepare a patch as review request tomorrow which fixes that typo.

Cheers
Friedrich