A question about the GPLv3
 

I sometimes fantasies of setting up my own software project somewhere in the future. I am going to make this free software, so I took a look at all sorts of licenses. I think the best license would be the GPLv3. I like it, but there's one thing I do not like and that is that it is upgradable by other people than myself.

Can I decide to make it not upgradable and still use the GPLv3?

I think the short answer is no. GPLv3 is controlled by the FSF, so you really can't change it and still call it GPLv3. Of course you could always remove the bit you don't like and call it something else. You'd just have to make sure that people could read the license before downloading your software.

Of course, given that there are dozens of open source licensens (check out OSI if you haven't already) maybe something besides GPLv3 would be better.

What is your definition of "not upgradable"? If you mean "not modifiable", then you won't be able to release your software as free/open source.

Good question. I had assumed that he was referring to the clause in the GPL that automatically "updates" the license when a new version of the GPL is released.

I'm not aware of this clause. The most recent draft I've seen uses the same language as to selection of license version as GPL 2 did. (Or nearly the same, it conveys the same meaning)

Here is the bit I was talking about:

I think the "any later version" might be optional, but for the life of me I can't figure out why someone would want to license their code that way. I mean, even the FSF doesn't know how its license would evolve. I also don't understand how someone could accept that license. If the conditions of the license could change in the future, that leaves absolutely no protection at all for a user. You just have to trust that the FSF isn't going to do something insane.

Of course I could be completely misconstruing what this section means, but I have seen a few other people interpret it as an automatic update of the GPL.

The FSF has to be able to react to changes in the software world, and the changes they make should be uniformal, otherwise someone who wants to build a distribution, or just start a project and use code from other projects he would have to read many different licenses, which very well could be more work than rewriting the code or not including your software. And that would work against the initial idea.
I believe that's the reason. If you see GPL, you know what it is. GPL2.1.3 wouldn't look as clear cut. Especially if you use code licensed under Gpl2.2.1, and Gpl1.2.5 for your project.
How do you license it then?

And if they would stick with one license - if someone finds a way to exploit the gpl, which is not unheard of, you would have to get the developers to change the license.
I think the way it is the whole free sofware thing is much more manageable.
At least that's how I understand it.

I personally would NEVER license anything under GPLv3. I disagree with many of its provisions. Thus, for me, being able NOT to use any later version is important to limit my work to GPLv2. Otherwise, I would need to find a completely different license, making things even more difficult.

My definition of not upgradable was purely from the license aspact. I do not want other people beside me to be able to upgrade the license from the GPLv3 to a higher version of the GPL. I want people to have the freedom to modify/alter/fork my software project.

That part of license confused me. That was the reason for my question. Ofcourse I do not want that. But I could not understand if I could use the GPLv3 in a way that if I mark it under version 3 without 'or any later version' I could tie it to GPLv3 only.

That is true. But what if somehow a evil company could get hold of the FSF, what then?

Except that is EXACTLY the situation today. Just because a program is open source doesn't mean it is licensed under the GPL. There are a ton of open licenses out there, and not all of them are compatible with the GPL. The GPL may be one of the grandaddys of the open source licensing world, but it is far from the only game in town, and with the GPLv3, I suspect the situation will get work.
I agree completely about GPLv3, the problem as I see it is that the section I posted isn't from GPLv3, it is from GPL v2. I haven't gone back to see if there are earlier versions of GPLv2 that don't have that provision, but from some of what I've seen, it is something that was introduced relatively recently. What I don't get is why users accept this clause in the GPL, because essentially it means that something that is perfectly legitimate to do today, may be a license violation tomorrow, and the affect of that change is retroactive. I'm sorry, but that just isn't an acceptable risk.

I guess you have a couple of options. Either do some research and find a version of GPL v2 that doesn't have the upgrade clause or find a different open source license to use. You could also write the FSF and get a better explanation of that section of the GPL and whether or not it is optional.

The FSF cannot FORCE you to accept a later version. Even with the "or any later version" language in there, it is up to the user to select their version.

That being said, if you don't want them to do that, don't put that language in the headers. The Linux kernel doesn't. It specifies GPL v2 and only that version.