Preview of GPL V3, Part 2

Meltr writes "NewsForge.com has published Part 2 of their GPL V3 preview. It clarifies Part 1, mentions the possibility of GPL V2.1, and discusses the system library exception and the issue of patents." We had covered their initial "sneak preview" a month ago.

Comments

Is this a good time to change the rules?

[richie123]

I agree that there are several issues like patents, and the ASP loophole that need fixing, but should we be considering changing the rules to the GPL just as more business, and users are getting to understand it? Hopefully RMS can avoid making any controvercial changes that whould devide the community ( I remember a few months back reading a article on advgato that advocated barring use of any GPL'd software by anyone suing any free software author over patent infringement, that I found to be a verry bad idea).

Re:Plugging holes

[Bruce Perens]

The choice of what license version to use is up to the individual copyright holder. Most of them say "version 2 or any later version", but Linus says "version 2", period, and will make his own choice later when he can see the text of a new license, along with the other copyright holders.

Thanks

Bruce

There is no GPL Version 3 yet, so don't panic

[Bruce Perens]

RMS hasn't even started writing it. He's at the stage of soliciting your opinion. He has made it clear that he's not going to make any changes without an extended community consultation. The sky will not fall, the rules will not change for existing software because you always have the option of applying the present GPL, people will have a choice of what license version to apply to new software. Choice is good.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:GPL: Ok to use our code to kill. God bless GPL.

[Bruce Perens]

One interesting thing about RMS: he's not a pacifist. Ask him about it sometime.

The Open Source Definition disallows this sort of license clause. Look at the part concerning "fields of endeavor". When I wrote that part in, I was thinking about people who might want to prohibit use of their software by abortion clinics, or by anti-abortion protesters. The Berkeley SPICE software actually prohibited use by the police of South Africa, and that provision remained in the license long after Apartheid had ended. So, I decided that this sort of license provision wasn't really a good idea.

Thanks

Bruce

Huh?

[Enahs]

"The criterion has to be somewhat more general than just allowing libc. But we definitely do not want to permit linking with third-party non-free libraries."

I'm sorry to ask it, but who are "we"? Certainly not I. The GPL is a bit too restrictive for my tastes. Upon a second reading of the LGPL, it may be a violation of the LGPL to release non-libraries under that license.

Sure, mod me down as a troll. I really don't care. I have a differing opinion and should be silenced.

Imagine, if you will, working on a paper for a class. You decide to release this paper under the mythical Free Paper License, so that content providers can use it and so that other students can benefit from your work. So you go to the library and start collecting sources. You start referencing sources. You start quoting sources in your article.

But wait! You're in violation of your license! Wha...? You heard me. The mythical Free Paper License requires all referenced content to be available under the conditions of either the FPL or the LFPL. ;-) So you start reading the copyright information in the books and find references that work. While you find references that work, you find that they aren't all exactly what you need.

What to do then? You start writing a supplementary paper that will be available under the Lesser Free Paper License. Unfortunately, at this point your professor balks, stating that your paper should be dependent only on outside sources, and that he/she won't accept a paper that has extra dependencies. So you try to bribe someone else into writing the LFPL paper for you. No luck. So much for making your paper "Free."

The point of all this? The GPL is too restrictive IMHO. While RMS may see real danger to allowing linking to "non-Free" libraries, I fail to see it. It's no more restrictive than quoting a source in an academic paper that falls under a restrictive licensing/copyright notice.