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See the FSF's Four Freedoms page. Clearly the "whole community" cannot benefit from your being able to change the software if none of them can run it.

Also, further down:

"The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity."

i.e. without getting it signed by a device manufacturer.

And if you doubt that that was the historical intent of the GPL, read about the history of the GNU project and a 2001 speech from Stallman. RMS was prevented from fixing the printer controller of the AI lab's laser printer, which had been provided as part of a turnkey hardware bundle from Xerox.

So the right to improve the software that runs on your hardware, even if the software and hardware were sold as a bundle, is exactly what RMS wanted GPL to give users.

See the FSF's Four Freedoms page. Clearly the "whole community" cannot benefit from your being able to change the software if none of them can run it.

Also, further down:

"The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity."

i.e. without getting it signed by a device manufacturer.

And if you doubt that that was the historical intent of the GPL, read about the history of the GNU project and a 2001 speech from Stallman. RMS was prevented from fixing the printer controller of the AI lab's laser printer, which had been provided as part of a turnkey hardware bundle from Xerox.

So the right to improve the software that runs on your hardware, even if the software and hardware were sold as a bundle, is exactly what RMS wanted GPL to give users.

See the FSF's Four Freedoms page. Clearly the "whole community" cannot benefit from your being able to change the software if none of them can run it.

Also, further down:

"The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity."

i.e. without getting it signed by a device manufacturer.

And if you doubt that that was the historical intent of the GPL, read about the history of the GNU project and a 2001 speech from Stallman. RMS was prevented from fixing the printer controller of the AI lab's laser printer, which had been provided as part of a turnkey hardware bundle from Xerox.

So the right to improve the software that runs on your hardware, even if the software and hardware were sold as a bundle, is exactly what RMS wanted GPL to give users.

> It may feel good, but if it doesn't do what I want and how I want it to, then I'm not buying it.

I hear you, man. Here's how you go about getting apps like that. You just need a few simple tools:

vi or emacs: you can get from http://www.vim.org/ or http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/, respectively

C compiler: very good one @ http://gcc.gnu.org/

OS: kernelspace of a good one is @ http://www.kernel.org/ but there are others.

And then after you install this stuff, you write a piece of software that does exactly what you want, how you want it done. It might be good to take an OSS app that does /almost/ exactly what you want, how you want it done as your base, because that way you'll have to write less code, but do whatever you feel is easiest from a software engineering perspective.

Unless you at least partially write your own software, you will /NEVER/ get exactly what you want from it, whether you use Windows, Linux, or Plan 9 from Bell Labs. Everyone wants something slightly different and everyone has different tastes. At least with open source, you can start with a good base to build on. With closed-source you're stuck with what they give you. With closed-source, if you want to make it right, you'll have to start from scratch.

What, you're not willing or not able to put forth this effort? Well, OSS owes you nothing; they're trying to make the software THEY want, after all. How about shutting up and letting us get back to that? k thx.

> It may feel good, but if it doesn't do what I want and how I want it to, then I'm not buying it.

I hear you, man. Here's how you go about getting apps like that. You just need a few simple tools:

vi or emacs: you can get from http://www.vim.org/ or http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/, respectively

C compiler: very good one @ http://gcc.gnu.org/

OS: kernelspace of a good one is @ http://www.kernel.org/ but there are others.

And then after you install this stuff, you write a piece of software that does exactly what you want, how you want it done. It might be good to take an OSS app that does /almost/ exactly what you want, how you want it done as your base, because that way you'll have to write less code, but do whatever you feel is easiest from a software engineering perspective.

Unless you at least partially write your own software, you will /NEVER/ get exactly what you want from it, whether you use Windows, Linux, or Plan 9 from Bell Labs. Everyone wants something slightly different and everyone has different tastes. At least with open source, you can start with a good base to build on. With closed-source you're stuck with what they give you. With closed-source, if you want to make it right, you'll have to start from scratch.

What, you're not willing or not able to put forth this effort? Well, OSS owes you nothing; they're trying to make the software THEY want, after all. How about shutting up and letting us get back to that? k thx.

The Right Thing(tm) is to keep the license as it is. It ensures the Solaris code has to be shared (like the GPL), but doesn't pollute source code around it

( GPL - viral clause = CDDL. Same license as firefox, or apache)

How is it Sun's fault that the GPL is incompatible with anything other than itself?

The FSF lists 30 GPL-compatible licenses other than the GPL itself.

And it's Sun's fault because they chose their license second, without (as far as I could tell) giving a clear explanation why a GPLv2-compatible license would have been impractical for them.

Linux wanting to pillage from the project isn't a good enough reason to make it impossible for people to write non-GPL drivers for Solaris

Whatever else their relative merits, Linux has by far the wider hardware support. I don't know, maybe there's a few crucial drivers Solaris would have to give up for lack of available GPL drivers, but they're giving up access to a ton of Linux driver code.

If you assign your copyright to them, are they under some Power of Attorney like duty to act in your best interests? If you want to switch to a BSD license, are they allowed to say no?

I write something and put it out for GPL, my ONLY option if I want to continue to have any control is to require copyright assignment to me for any patches/etc. However, would YOU contribute to any such project knowing that the copyright owner could flip it to BSD or propietary on a whim? I'm guessing "no", so you want to retain your copyright on the portions you contribute, which in turn make the original person (like the poster) effectively unable to control their code. You can't even fork it without stripping out all the non-copyright-assigned code if you want to switch licenses, for example.

If you assign your copyright to them, are they under some Power of Attorney like duty to act in your best interests? If you want to switch to a BSD license, are they allowed to say no?

I write something and put it out for GPL, my ONLY option if I want to continue to have any control is to require copyright assignment to me for any patches/etc. However, would YOU contribute to any such project knowing that the copyright owner could flip it to BSD or propietary on a whim? I'm guessing "no", so you want to retain your copyright on the portions you contribute, which in turn make the original person (like the poster) effectively unable to control their code. You can't even fork it without stripping out all the non-copyright-assigned code if you want to switch licenses, for example.

If you assign your copyright to them, are they under some Power of Attorney like duty to act in your best interests? If you want to switch to a BSD license, are they allowed to say no?

I write something and put it out for GPL, my ONLY option if I want to continue to have any control is to require copyright assignment to me for any patches/etc. However, would YOU contribute to any such project knowing that the copyright owner could flip it to BSD or propietary on a whim? I'm guessing "no", so you want to retain your copyright on the portions you contribute, which in turn make the original person (like the poster) effectively unable to control their code. You can't even fork it without stripping out all the non-copyright-assigned code if you want to switch licenses, for example.

Here's the problems you will face. If you license under GPL version 2 or later then you can't incorporate code that is licensed under version 3 (but not version 2) into your project (others here seem to imply that you can) until you move up to version 3 yourself. Basically you need to think of it this way, in order to use other people's code in your project your license has to be a subset of their license. In order for others to use your code their license has to be a subset of yours. Here is what I would recommend:

• License your project as a whole (and all included files) under GPL version 2 or later for now.
• Continue to License under GPL 2 or later until you need to incorporate code that is licensed under GPL version 3.
• When you need to include code licensed under GPL 3 or later (try to avoid any code licensed under GPL 3 only) then you can relicense your project as a whole under GPL version 3 or later, but keep most of the individual files licensed under GPL 2 or later. Only those files that include the code that was licensed under GPL 3 or later need to have their license headers changed.
• If you need to include code licensed under GPL 2 only, then contact the authors and ask for permission to relicense that specific code under GPL 2 or later, most (but not all) will happily give you permission to do that. Barring that you will have to find another source of the code or write it yourself.
• You can, of course link to libraries licensed under the LGPL, and include code licensed under BSD (as long as you comply with the attribution clause). As of GPL 3 you can also include code licensed under the Apache license, plus there are several licenses (such as the perl license) that are actually dual licenses of GPL plus some other license and code from those can be used freely under the GPL (watch out for what versions they specify). Have a look at the Free Software Foundation License Compatibility Page for more details on lots of licenses and their compatibility to the GPL.
• Watch out for version numbers. If a program specifies that it is licensed under the GPL (without any version number) then it can be used under any version of the GPL. If a program specifies that it is licensed under GPL Version 2 (or some other specific version number) then you can only use the code under that specific version of the GPL. Most programs will specify version 2 or later (and many will soon change to version 3 or later) which means that you can use the code under that version or (at your option) any later version.

As for allowing others to use your code, you have some options with that as well:

• You can dual license, or multi-license specific files in your project so that they are compatible with other licenses you want them to be usable with, just don't forget to remove the other licenses from any files that you include someone else's GPL code in.
• You can give explicit permission to others to license under other licenses of your choice when they write you and ask, just make sure that you specify which parts of the code they can only use under the GPL (and which versions) due to it not being your code.

I think this about as comprehensive of a guide as I can give you. I'm not a lawyer or a representative of the Free Software Foundation and my statements above are just opinion and not to be taken as legal advice. I just know what I know and am passing that knowledge on.

So, yes, if you distribute a linux kernel that you downloaded from "xyzzyplugh.com" you can direct people to "xyzzyplugh.com" for sources. But if "xyzzyplugh.com" goes out of business, you still need to be able to provide the sources.

Specifically, part 3(c) of the GPL v2 says:

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

Certainly not! This is evidence that current IP laws are too lax! To ensure final victory we must protect valuable research. Only hardcore pinko communists and certain factions in Iran would disagree!

"Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned," NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton said. "If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year."
http://www.contentagenda.com/CA6452245.html

Many years ago Microsoft started to hire all the famous people in free software. Soul after soul joined the dark side and the future looked grim. Slightly depressed after reading one more such announcement I fired up Napster and without thinking too much I searched for "free software". The song I found sounded worse than a donkey braying but listening to it made me realize there are still people that will not sell out. You can hurt your ears here

After so many repeats, you'd think a small nagging doubt "maybe I'm wrong" would start to raise it's ugly head.

But no, being arrogant idiot, obviously that hasn't happened.

1. Yes, you can do this with a Linux distribution. Note that you are technically selling a Linux distribution (with hardware), so you'd have to either include the distribution sources, or offer them online, or include an offer to supply any source for any GPL'ed binary in your distribution. And Linux probably won't go GPLv3 anytime soon.

2. Legally using a statically (or shared!) linked library with your own code creates a 'combined work'. If you use GPL'ed libraries (they exist), you have to supply the source code to the whole combined work. The LGPL only states that you have to supply the source code of the library you used, not the whole combined work. The LGPL doesn't differ between statically or shared linking, which is a common misconception. See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html for details.

3. Sure you can obfuscate your code. Write it in Perl, and you get the obfuscation for free.

4. No, you won't be forced to publish your code by some 3-d party. Not unless you use a GPL'ed library or code in your combined work, or make changes to GPL'ed code.

5. It depends on what you see as a problem. It is true that you would be able to distribute your hard+software without having to supply any source code if you only use BSD licensed binaries and libraries, but as long as you use BSD/LGPL-licensed libraries you wouldn't have to supply the source code of your own work.

And don't be put-off by the Linux fanboys. Kudos to the people who are trying to make the free software model work for their business and play by the rules.

The following is a typical frustration for free software advocates:

Recently I gave a conference presentation about the benefits of F/OSS for educators -- how all teachers and students could use these tools and that they were free and would remain so. I distributed copies of TheOpenCD and talked about the F/OSS programs that it includes. Near the end of the hour-long presentation, a participant raised her hand and asked, "So I can use this software for free?" Even after an hour, F/OSS still did not quite make sense to her.

Every other source of information teachers have is full of non free propaganda. Don't copy that floppy (flash warning) is an annoying classic. The basic tenants were laid out by Bill Gates in his famous 1976 whine which says, "if you don't pay me, your computer won't work". Broadcasters and publishers justify their existence with a similar but more realistic story that reinforces the software lie. The lie is reinforced with confusing language, bogus arguments and, ultimately, name calling. The tactics are covered in detail here. Microsoft spends a billion dollars a month on marketing and each piece of that marketing conveys their propaganda.

It's very effective and can only be eliminated by free software use. The idea that software can be shared and improved is so completely foreign to them, so much that you can perform almost any demonstration with free software and they still won't understand, as evidenced above. It's only after they use free software, like Mozilla, that they can see that it is not only good enough, it's what they want and that's what free software is all about. At that point, the rest of the lies start falling down and they get very angry.

The following is a typical frustration for free software advocates:

Recently I gave a conference presentation about the benefits of F/OSS for educators -- how all teachers and students could use these tools and that they were free and would remain so. I distributed copies of TheOpenCD and talked about the F/OSS programs that it includes. Near the end of the hour-long presentation, a participant raised her hand and asked, "So I can use this software for free?" Even after an hour, F/OSS still did not quite make sense to her.

Every other source of information teachers have is full of non free propaganda. Don't copy that floppy (flash warning) is an annoying classic. The basic tenants were laid out by Bill Gates in his famous 1976 whine which says, "if you don't pay me, your computer won't work". Broadcasters and publishers justify their existence with a similar but more realistic story that reinforces the software lie. The lie is reinforced with confusing language, bogus arguments and, ultimately, name calling. The tactics are covered in detail here. Microsoft spends a billion dollars a month on marketing and each piece of that marketing conveys their propaganda.

It's very effective and can only be eliminated by free software use. The idea that software can be shared and improved is so completely foreign to them, so much that you can perform almost any demonstration with free software and they still won't understand, as evidenced above. It's only after they use free software, like Mozilla, that they can see that it is not only good enough, it's what they want and that's what free software is all about. At that point, the rest of the lies start falling down and they get very angry.

Not to mention that aside from WebKit, which the parent poster points to, or the zeroconf standard (which Apple helped to write), they've also contributed a lot of code to another open source project in particular. It's called the GNU Compiler Collection, or GCC for short. You might have seen it around on a Linux box or two, even. ;)

I like what Lee says about pattents but the Communist era graphics are offensive. Mass murder was committed under posters like that and many of the victims are still alive. Free software is NOT communism because software and ideas are not property, so the imagery is inappropriate to begin with.

Oh wait, look "WHERE WE WORK"

• Association for Competitive Technology
• Cato Institute
• Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Freedom Works
• Heritage Foundation
• Mercatus Center
• Pacific Research Institute
• Progress and Freedom Foundation

A large grain of salt should be taken when reading their stuff. When the Cato Institute brings out yellow stars on red backgrounds, they are usually flaming someone.

Other people have also written about the dangers of software patents from a more fundamental perspective. It's not enough to say that software patents can be economically harmful because they are also morally and legally wrong. If we apply tests like that, we can avoid the financial harms later. When we don't we end up where we are.

Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my site?

        Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide "equivalent access" to download the source--therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary.

Now it may be true that making money from GPL'd software requires different business models and strategies than making money from
proprietary software... but it's false to suggest that the GPL prohibits - in spirit or in letter - making a profit from GPL'd code.

Yes.

No profit? What are you smoking?

use " -D_GLIBCXX_DEBUG " .... I don't understand why everyone seems to know this part of stlport and don't realise other librarys have it as well.

much in the same way that you don't have the right to use GPL software unless you accept the terms of the GPL

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted

Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.

Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.

The word "free" has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of "free software", we're talking about freedom, not price. (Think of "free speech", not "free beer".) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.

Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless of the price, because users have freedom in using it.

[...]

Except for one special situation, the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy.

It's funny when people advocating free software focus on the cost.

If you want to make sure nobody ever profits off of your work, choose GPL.

Perhaps, Mr. Pot, Mr. Kettle is not the only one here who needs to adjust his focus. While the post you responded to most certainly made an issue of money, many who choose to advocate or use the GPL are sincere in their desire to preserve software freedom. I don't agree with everything I read on this page, but there's enough there that makes sense that I don't think it's fair to accuse people of using the GPL just to spite people trying to make a living from programming.

Can you do me a huge favor and not type another word on your keyboard without reading this: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html? Thanks.

so long as it is in compliance with the BSD license

P.S. One thing I missed from the Windows world was a simple RPN calculator like XCalc.

If you can afford to make your app compile with mingw's gcc (or cygwin's gcc but mingw should be easier), then you may be able to use mudflap, which is a memory debugging system integrated into gcc. You just need to pass -fmudflap, and gcc will instrument the program at compilation time.

One thing is that it used not to properly instrument some really basic C++ operation in gcc 4.1 (I don't remember what exactly, something like copy construction of an object containing pointers) and was reporting spurious leaks because of that. It may have been fixed in 4.2.

Search for "mudflap" in the following page: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/Optimi ze-Options.html#Optimize-Options
As well as http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Mudflap%20Pointer%20Debugg ing (maybe slightly outdated)

If you can afford to make your app compile with mingw's gcc (or cygwin's gcc but mingw should be easier), then you may be able to use mudflap, which is a memory debugging system integrated into gcc. You just need to pass -fmudflap, and gcc will instrument the program at compilation time.

One thing is that it used not to properly instrument some really basic C++ operation in gcc 4.1 (I don't remember what exactly, something like copy construction of an object containing pointers) and was reporting spurious leaks because of that. It may have been fixed in 4.2.

Search for "mudflap" in the following page: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/Optimi ze-Options.html#Optimize-Options
As well as http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Mudflap%20Pointer%20Debugg ing (maybe slightly outdated)

To start this off, I have been a long time passive reader
of slashdot, but never really got around to making an account,
as I never had any reason to comment. That said, the complete
lack of any sort of understanding of the GPL on the part of you
or your lawyers has blown my mind. It is to make this reply that I
took 10 minutes to create an account.

"It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under
something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License."
Ok, first, let's use the term 'licensed' as it is more appropriate.
It is copyrighted under normal copyright laws, which are what
make the GPL possible. Some of the copyright laws are given up,
to allow more freedom for the end user. Also, it is worth noting,
GPL stands for GNU Public License, not GNU Protective license.

"Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel
are to be made freely available."
Not entirely true. The license states that when distributing
binaries, licensed under the GPL, you must also offer the underlying
source code. If the binaries never see the light of day outside
your company, you never need offer the source outside the company.
On the other hand, if you distribute your own personal flavour of
Linux within your company, you must offer the source as well,
but only to those in your company. And if they all have your level
of technical expertise, I'm sure you have nothing to worry about.

"... any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would
also have to its source code released."
Wrong. According to Ken Foskey, an OpenOffice.org developer responding
to this very question, you can have closed source binaries compiled using GCC.
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-help/2005-01/msg00140.ht ml

"Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever
use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position."
As I said before, you need not distribute your source outside
the company, if you do not distribute your binaries outside the
company. You could quite easily make your own fork of Linux, keeping
it tightly secured inside your own company, a la Google.

"We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000."
I'm curious how you were able to port a project that required exacting
kernel changes to a closed source platform. I'll be honest, something
doesn't smell right.

"I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with
Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarentee that
no business will ever be able to use it."
The GPL keeps Linux competitive with the closed source model by ensuring that
closed source conglomerates do not make a living by utilizing free code,
and never giving back to the community. The GPL is also what makes it possible
for companies to use it, as they know that other companies can't take their
source code, and lock it down, such as with the BSD license.

Do some research, and learn what the GPL is and does before you bash it. Also, get
new lawyers, because yours do not know what they're talking about in matters of
technology and licensing, which are apparently important topics in your company. It's
too bad you've brought this up after you've switched to a new model, as it means that,
in the end, your productivity will be hurt over needless fears.

http://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/preview-latex.h tml

Emacs vs. vi?? They both suck!!

RTFM.
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node /Mac-OS.html#Mac-OS

For the record, all of the Emacs acronym jokes are actually shipped with every Emacs distribution in a file called "etc/JOKES", which has a ton of other hilarious stuff in it too. If you don't want to go digging through a local emacs installation, here's the official copy of the JOKES file.

"The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled. On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455)."

Available NOW at a cheap introductory price of $199.99!

Remember kids, free software is a matter of freedom, not price.

But the fact is that several years (2 actually) after I found out about the GPL I am STILL TOTALLY UNABLE to know what is the right way to use a GPLed library

Try this link: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWi thGPL. Basically, if you link your code to a GPL library then your code must be GPL as well. If the library is LGPL, your code does not need to be GPL as well.

Cheers,

Roger

> One major danger that GPLv3.1 will block is Googlization. Googlization means services contain
> GPL-covered software that you can't change, because the product is never published and so no
> source code has to be provided.

This was actually up for GPLv3, but meet too much resistance through the review process.

> One major danger that GPLv3.2 will block is Xboxization. Xboxization means devices contain
> GPL-covered software that connect to a network that you can't change, because the network shuts
> you out if it detects modified software...

Xboxization would require DRM restrictions already forbidden in GPLv3.

> On ATI/nVidia Linux drivers.. One major danger that GPLv3.3 will block is BLOBization.
> BLOBization means software packages containing GPL-covered software that communicate to a
> non-GPL-covered piece of binary software (BLOB) that you can't change, because the BLOB is not
> covered by the GPL...

This is already forbidden in GPLv2, the only reason ATI/nVidia can do it is because Linux is considered covered by "GPLv2 plus an implicit exception for binary BLOBs". Well, that and the fact the legal power to enforce GPL to people not actually distributing any GPL'ed software (but only binary BLOBs intended to link with GPL'ed software) is somewhat dubious. A new version of the GPL will not change either of these.

> One major danger that GPLv4 will block is GPL-less compiling. GPL-less compiling means programs
> created using GPL-covered software that you can't change, because the actual program contains no
> GPL-covered source code.

This is kind of silly, as the tools where this could actually be enforced (like GCC and Bison where non-trivial GPL'ed code is usually included in the result) has specific exceptions to allow "GPL-less compiling". For Bison, this exception was added recently.

> One major danger that GPLv4.1 will block is artization. artization means original works of art
> created using GPL-covered software that you can't change, because the work is strictly non-GPL.

How is this different from the previous point?

> One major danger that GPLv4.2 will block is reimplementation. reimplementation means software
> programs developed based on, but re-implemented in a different way of, GPL software that you
> can't change, because the work is not GPL.

Given that the core of GNU is re-implementations of proprietary work, this goes beyond silly. It is also unenforceable with copyright law, you'd need a "copyleft" for patents instead (which has been suggested (albeit not by the FSF): This patent can be used by anyone who shared their own patents in a similar way).

> One major danger that GPLv5 will block is in-houseation. in-houseation means software programs
> based on, developed with, and so forth and so on as set forth in the other clauses, that is only
> used in-house that you can't change because the source code need not have been made available.

This would violate freedom 0, which would mean a clear breach of the contract signed to everyone who has ever donated software to the FSF. The FSF has already declared licenses with a "anti-in-houseation" clause for non-free with reference to freedom 0.

> And so forth and so on.

Actually, only your first suggestion had any basis in reality. The rest seemed made up with the sole purpose of spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about the future of the GPL.

Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input.

As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs

This section of the GPL FAQ implies that FSF has no plans to require that the output of a copylefted program be put under that same copyleft.

> However, in smaller projects, which really *need* a very specific direction

Even bigger projects need specific directions, witness GCC. I am sorry but everyone who thinks distrubuted SCM are a good thing. I am going to say they are a bad thing for free software because they allow people to develop stuff in private. Yes this already happens. This is why for an example GCC's rules for branches are that they are free for all and they are used a lot.

Take a look at http://gcc.gnu.org/svn.html and see how many branches there are, though most of them are inactive but some are very active (and getting ready to be merged into the trunk). I guess distrubuted SCM allows for people not to develop in public any more which I say is a bad thing. I have been working on a branch of GCC and who ever says merging is hard is wrong (I am dealing with an IR change which touches all front-ends and 50% of the middle-end, the tree level and I am able to merge at least once a week and the merge sometimes fix some of the regressions I was trying to fix before :)).

I don't know about you but having a policy of branches are free for all is a good thing and it causes what distrubuted SCM will cause which is more development and a "private" tree (though it is public but the branch is yours to deal with).

I guess people don't see the bad side of distrubuted SCM that much because they don't deal with projects like GCC. The kernel has the same issue and I think Linus does not get the idea that public development is a good thing.

I could have developed all of my branch (pointer_plus) in a private local tree but I would not get some of the testing I have been getting from people I did not expect to be testing my branch. Plus I don't have all the resources that other people are putting into the testing that they do.

Thanks,
Andrew Pinski

>By this I mean, you cannot track local changes to your workspace without committing them to the central server.

This is actually a good thing really, be more open about your changes.
You should look at the work I have been doing for GCC: http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/PointerPlus .
If I did this work in private, it will most likely not be accepted as it is a big change to the compiler. Plus this allows for and kinda forces collaboration on projects that are not part of the main trunk. Both are good things. If people do work in private in GCC, the development comunity looks down on that development as that means they will dump and run. If the work is in public, then we know people are working on that project and developer resources are not lost.

Thanks,
Andrew Pinski

Published: February 11, 2007