Revising the GPL

To quote Linus Torvalds... by Jerk+City+Troll · 2004-12-23 04:39 · Score: 5, Informative

I really want a license to do just two things: make the code available to others, and make sure that improvements stay that way. That's really it. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else is fluff.

...

And the thing is, in my fuzzy "cannot plan his way out of a cardboard box" world, I don't worry too much about the next version of the GPL. I'm not a lawyer, I don't worry about the exact wording. In many ways, my only gripe with the GPL has been how many words it seems to need to say something very simple. That seems to be a common theme in any legal situation.

What else is there to say?

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Re:To quote Linus Torvalds... by Just+Some+Guy · 2004-12-23 05:55 · Score: 2, Informative

From /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2 on a Debian box:
The header and preamble are 58 lines long.
The "terms and conditions" section is 222 lines long.
The "how to apply these terms to your new programs" section is 59 lines long, and is relatively legalese-dense.
Therefore, the heart of the license is over 65% of the length of the standard GPL license file and consists mainly of such propagandistic paragraphs as:
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

IANAL, but I can't imagine a much terser way to say that without leaving out the important parts. OTOH, that extra 58 lines of preamble (which are physically separate from the "terms and conditions") seem to establish the intent of the rest of the license. I think it'd be hard to tell a judge that you thought it meant that you could keep your modifications private while distributing binaries when he explains in detail what the license intends to do.
Even if that doesn't help at all legally, it certainly explains the rationale to interested parties in a reasonably concise way. Given that RMS wrote the license partly to influence his peers at a time when few people saw the need or benefits of such a license, I don't think it was unreasonable for him to send a little speech along with his new creation.

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Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?

OT, I know... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-23 04:39 · Score: 0, Informative

...but for pete's sake, the grammar! Normal /. bad grammar doesn't really bother me, but "Will the new GPL draw users to it, rather then using other licenses such as Apache's License or the Netscape Public License?" doesn't even make sense!

Bad grammar can be overlooked as long as the message gets across. "He ain't here," while grammatically incorrect, still conveys the meaning. This satisfies the communication requirement for language.

But I almost can't figure out what the poster was trying to say. I *think* I understand, but I'm not 100% sure.

This isn't just bad grammar, it's bad language.

Re:ASL by AllUsernamesAreGone · 2004-12-23 04:41 · Score: 1, Informative

ASL == Age/Sex/Location

Re:Question by BetterThanCaesar · 2004-12-23 04:46 · Score: 4, Informative

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

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"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert

Re:ASL by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-23 04:48 · Score: 2, Informative

If I recall correctly ASL stands for age, sex, location and is a common abbrevation in flirt chat rooms. The funny-modded comment can be read as the answer to "hey, what's your ASL"?

Re:Question by betelgeuse-4 · 2004-12-23 04:52 · Score: 3, Informative

"... the G in GPL means GNU ..."

It actually stands for 'General'. See the GPL FAQ.

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Decode these

Fundamental problem won't be addressed by Ed+Burnette · 2004-12-23 05:01 · Score: 2, Informative

GPL intentionally drives a wedge between the open and closed source communities. However it doesn't have to be that way. If your main purpose is to encourage open source, including making the source to any modifications available, then EPL already provides that. Unlike GPL, it does not put restrictions on the other code and licences with which it can be used.

Re:Question by Florian+Weimer · 2004-12-23 05:10 · Score: 3, Informative

Ok, but what happens if someone buys the FSF.

The FSF is contractually bound to continue publishing software under a free license (reread your assignment contract). They worst thing they could do is to switch to a BSD license which encourages software hoarding.

If this bugs you, remove the "or later" part.

Re:The GPL/LGPL worries me.... by emurphy42 · 2004-12-23 05:28 · Score: 2, Informative

1) The FSF can create different versions in the future, and everything under the old licenses is effectively retroactively dual-licensed.

Some projects specify "version X alone", though the FSF recommends "version X or later" for the explicitly-stated purpose of making retroactive dual-licensing work.

The FSF consists of little more than Richard Stallman.

This seems debatable. Someone with concrete evidence want to weigh in?

What happens when Stallman gets hit by a bus? Who controls the FSF (and through it GPL) then? How many millions would even partial control of the GPL be worth these days? Maybe loosen those "troublesome restrictions"?

If it appears that the FSF will fall into evil hands, then I would expect many OSS developers to hurry up and release a new version with "version X alone" style licensing.

2) The LGPL is all based on object "linking". What the hell is the legal definition of "linking"? The idea of linking will become increasingly irrelevant in the future; it's like a 1980's OS-specific license.

This analysis of the LGPL and Java may help clarify the issue.

3) What happens to the legal status of GPL'ed projects when some company manages to retroactively claim a patent on some double click feature? At that point, does it not become illegal to distribute the software under the terms of the GPL? Won't that invalidate the whole license for that software package?

A patent that broad would also hit lots of commercial software, whose authors would presumably tie things up in court until they could invalidate the patent (or the relevant bits of the patent system).

Re:The GPL should be a little friendler. by NutscrapeSucks · 2004-12-23 05:31 · Score: 2, Informative

Making it difficult to connect applications together because one is not under the GPL and doesn't want to be.

The GPL doesn't make this difficult, it is the ambiguous definition of derived software works under copyright law. Until some court lays down some strict rules, this is a problem for everyone integrating different pieces of software.

Admittedly, RMS/FSF hasn't helped the situation by postulating a bunch of made-up informal rules based on "linking" when the legal reality is probably much more subtle (for example, the Linux Nvidia driver).

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Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.

Re:I wish they would define "derivative work" bett by mark-t · 2004-12-23 06:29 · Score: 2, Informative

I must confess I'd find it very uncomfortable to licence *any* code I've written under the LGPL. I find the idea that someone could take my code, modify or add a few lines of code, then go and sell it without giving anything back to the community quite offensive.

Actually, that's exactly the scenario the LPGL would prevent.... The only thing that the LGPL does that the GPL doesn't is allow you to _link_ closed source applications to the LGPL'd code without being obligated to open the source to your own work. If you modify the LGPL code itself, you cannot distribute the resulting work without placing it under the LGPL as well.

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Re:The GPL/LGPL worries me.... by iabervon · 2004-12-23 06:29 · Score: 3, Informative

There is nothing in the GPL 2.0 which allows future versions to be used. The FSF (in the non-license portion of the GPL document) suggests licensing your work under "the GPL v2.0 or any later version published by the FSF", but there's no reason you have to do this. In particular, the Linux kernel is mostly under only the GPL v2.0 (portions of it are available under other licenses as well). Linus did it this way primarily because of the concerns you raise.

The LGPL can be explained without the term "linking": you can distribute a non-(L)GPL binary so long as it is possible to replace any LGPL portions without needing to do anything that the recipient can't do. If anything, it is static linking which will disappear, making the LGPL easier to follow (if you change the portions you got from somewhere else, you have to release these changes).

When some company manages to claim a patent on a feature of any software, regardless of the license, it becomes illegal to distribute it. The GPL is not special in this respect. Patents are not an issue for the GPL, which is a copyright license. They are, however, an issue for Free Software, because there's another entity which might restrict your freedom, and it's a thornier issue, because the holder of a patent is less likely to have needed to agree to a license than the holder of a copyright (since copyrights are often on derived works of some sort).

Re:Questions by Lodragandraoidh · 2004-12-23 08:39 · Score: 2, Informative

I think the key point is as long as you have a version of an application that says 'version 2 or any following version' - you don't have to worry about what the FSF or RSM does in the intervening years - you will still be able to follow the less-restrictive version 2 license in perpetuity for that version of the source.

Per the GPL FAQ:

" Why should programs say "Version 2 of the GPL or any later version"?
From time to time, at intervals of years, we change the GPL--sometimes to clarify it, sometimes to permit certain kinds of use not previously permitted, and sometimes to tighten up a requirement. (The last change was in 1991.) Using this "indirect pointer" in each program makes it possible for us to change the distribution terms on the entire collection of GNU software, when we update the GPL.

If each program lacked the indirect pointer, we would be forced to discuss the change at length with numerous copyright holders, which would be a virtual impossibility. In practice, the chance of having uniform distribution terms for GNU software would be nil.

Suppose a program says "Version 2 of the GPL or any later version" and a new version of the GPL is released. If the new GPL version gives additional permission, that permission will be available immediately to all the users of the program. But if the new GPL version has a tighter requirement, it will not restrict use of the current version of the program, because it can still be used under GPL version 2. When a program says "Version 2 of the GPL or any later version", users will always be permitted to use it, and even change it, according to the terms of GPL version 2--even after later versions of the GPL are available.

If a tighter requirement in a new version of the GPL need not be obeyed for existing software, how is it useful? Once GPL version 3 is available, the developers of most GPL-covered programs will release subsequent versions of their programs specifying "Version 3 of the GPL or any later version". Then users will have to follow the tighter requirements in GPL version 3, for subsequent versions of the program.

However, developers are not obligated to do this; developers can continue allowing use of the previous version of the GPL, if that is their preference."

Additionally, you can create a derivative license, per the GPL FAQ:

" Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license?
You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar).

If you want to use our preamble in a modified license, please write to for permission. For this purpose we would want to check the actual license requirements to see if we approve of them.

Although we will not raise legal objections to your making a modified license in this way, we hope you will think twice and not do it. Such a modified license is almost certainly incompatible with the GNU GPL, and that incompatibility blocks useful combinations of modules. The mere proliferation of different free software licenses is a burden in and of itself."

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Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain

Re:exactly, license patent to GPL software only by m50d · 2004-12-23 22:19 · Score: 2, Informative

The GPL does not need usage rights because they exist anyway and there's a "no additional restrictions" clause. Of course it's possible that a really messed up country would say you're not allowed to read source code you own, but in that case I don't think a license would be enough to help them.

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I am trolling

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