[josm-dev] License clarification for JOSM plugins

[Gervase Markham]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> To me it didn't matter until now; it is the Debian folks with *their*
> guidelines who want to have a very clear understanding, so I am a bit
> reluctant to trawl through SVN to find out the names of everyone who
> has contributed, because that work is of no direct use to *me*, it
> just satisfies the guidelines someone else has introduced for a
> completely different project.

Would you agree that the current licensing situation is unclear?

If so, I think that JOSM would definitely benefit from some clarity 
surrounding the licensing. All projects are better off with such clarity.

Putting "GPLv2 or later" headers on all the files would not require 
seeking the permission of anyone. No file has been restricted to "GPLv2 
only" by a header, and the GPL says that if no version number is 
specified, then any can be used. Adding headers like that would make 
things much more clear.

Gerv