[JoshTriplett]

The line you quoted doesn't appear in the terms of the license; projects can use that language to apply GPLv2 or any later version, but they don't have to do so. Many projects explicitly use version 2 only, most famously the Linux kernel.

[muuh-gnu]

So it is effectively their fault for preventing the licence of their project from _ever_ being updated, even in the case where some future legal loophole makes exploiting GPLv2 code possible.

It is short sighted essentially freezing the legal status of a project forever, and it is even more idiotic to blame the FSF for being incompatible with projects that voluntarily cut off forward-compatibility by removing the "or any later" clause.

[anonymouz]

It's a trade off you make when you first choose the license: Either you leave the upgrade clause in, as recommended by the FSF. Then anyone can easily upgrade the license of the project to a new version of the GPL (or just use it as if it were licensed under the new version). The drawback is of course that you trust the FSF that new versions of the license match the spirit of the old ones, or that you find them at least agreeable.

Or you remove the upgrade clause. In that case you can be absolutely sure that nobody can sneak in new terms that you don't agree with. On the other hand, if you do actually want to change the license (e.g., upgrade to a new version of the GPL), you'll have to ask all the contributors to agree to the license change explicitly.

[dragonwriter]

I suppose, if you want to blame them for making use of on open-source code released by a third-party software vendor that was happy enough to release it under the GPLv2, but not happy to allow arbitrary changes to the license terms controlled by the whims of the FSF in rewriting licenses in the future, and who has no interest in relicensing now under the GPLv3, with or without an "or any later" clause.

[gillianseed]

If they had left in the 'or later' clause they could still use it under GPLv2, just not _limit_ it to GPLv2, which is what the 'third-party software vendor' decided to do.

[dragonwriter]

If they had left in the 'or later' clause, they couldn't use software from the third-party supplier, who only licensed under GPLv2 without the 'or later' clause.

If you are distributing someone else's software (even as part of your own work), you are restricted by the terms of the license they've given you. If that's GPLv2-only, you can't distribute a work incorporating their work as GPLv2-or-later.

[gillianseed]

With 'they' I was referring to the 'third-party' who were the ones which licenced without the 'or later' to begin with.

[mlinksva]

If freezing legal status of a project forever is short-sighted, the ability to opt-out of upward compatibility in GPLv2 is a tragedy, as is the same in GPLv3. If there ever is a GPLv4, hopefully it will be purely GPLv4+ with no option for GPLv4-only.

[cube13]

You're assuming that you're going to agree with the terms of GPL5. That's certainly not a good assumption(See Torvalds, Linus).