[Fedora-legal-list] Inclusion of GPLv3 lib in GPLv2 work

[Matt McCutchen]

On Sun, 2011-09-25 at 03:32 +0900, zxq9 wrote:
> Is it appropriate to include a GPLv3 library into a GPLv2 work?
> (A work that is expressly *not* GPLv2+?)
> 
> If not, why?
> (The "for any purpose" clause seems to cover this from both directions 
> -- and anyway they are both GPL licenses so this is definitely within 
> the spirit and intent of the GPL...?)

<tangent>
The relevant intent here is that of the projects that chose to grant
GPLvN only rather than GPLvN+.  FSF would certainly prefer if everyone
granted GPLvN+ (Savannah even requires it), but understandably, some
projects do not trust FSF as a steward of future license upgrades.  For
these cases, the GPL (unlike some other free software licenses) is
designed to make it possible to grant GPLvN only.  Had that option not
been available, we would likely have seen further fragmentation of
licenses.

So, actually, it directly contravenes the intent of the projects to
combine GPLv2-only and GPLv3-only work.  (Let's leave aside the question
of the tenability of FSF's claim that dynamic linking creates a
derivative work.)
</tangent>

-- 
Matt