I asked Will linux kernel move to GPL 3? after the start of discussion in the Linux kernel mailing list about adopting the GPL3. And as I said in a previous article developers were divided about the subject.

The final answer to the previous question came in the same mailing list from Linus Torvalds, the creator and the maintainer of Linux kernel. Here is what he says:

The Linux kernel has _always_ been under the GPL v2. Nothing else has ever been valid.

The "version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version" language in the GPL copying file is not - and has never been - part of the actual License itself. It's part of the _explanatory_ text that talks about how to apply the license to your program, and it says that _if_ you want to accept any later versions of the GPL, you can state so in your source code.
The Linux kernel has never stated that in general. Some authors have chosen to use the suggested FSF boilerplate (including the "any later version" language), but the kernel in general never has.

In other words: the _default_ license strategy is always just the particular version of the GPL that accompanies a project. If you want to license a program under _any_ later version of the GPL, you have to state so explicitly. Linux never did.

So: the extra blurb at the top of the COPYING file in the kernel source tree was added not to _change_ the license, but to _clarify_ these points so that there wouldn't be any confusion.

The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some individual files are licenceable under v3, but not the kernel in general.

And quite frankly, I don't see that changing. I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn't do it. So I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code.

Conversion isn't going to happen.


So, the suspense is over!