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Moglen's Plans to Upgrade the GPL
Nick Irelan writes "Although it most certainly won't be easy, Eben Moglen is attempting to upgrade the GPL. He sees an opportunity to create a version of the GPL that will be able to adequately suit the needs of modern programmers. If they are implemented, his ideas will be the first major change the GPL has experienced since Richard Stallman wrote the original version. Eweek has an amazing article about Moglen's work. Linus Torvalds discussed what he believes should happen to the GPL with Eweek as well."
No need to release it.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
no it doesnt....
GPL = General Public License (GNU)
and
GNU = Gnu's Not Unix
liqbase
Based on the wording of the GPL, you cannot release a GPL program under an old lisence. It states that the program is licensed under either the included version, or any subsequent version thereof, at the discretion of whoever is going to be changing it. The GPL is also "unmodifiable" (Something I personally don't like) I assume, technically, this also forces derivitaves of someone who chose to use GPL3 on a GPL2'd project would forever be locked in GPL3
I hate grammar Nazi's.
*feeds the troll*
If you use GPL, FSF can arbitrarily change the GPL to anything they want at anytime.
From the GPL:
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time... Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
Linking against a GPL library (e.g. cygwin) requires the result to be GPL'd.
An LGPL'd library (e.g. libc) can be used by non GPL'd software so long as you provide the ability to upgrade the LGPL'd library (dynamically linking satisfies this condition, as does providing object files and a link script).
Both of the above assume that copyright actually applies (if, e.g., your work isn't legally a derived work of the GPL'd or LGPL'd code then things are rather different).
rage, rage against the dying of the light
As far as I know nobody has ever been forced to do this, nor is it likely they would. What's more likely is that they'd be barred from distributing and would need to re-write the product without the GPL components. Most companies who base something heavily on the GPL (like embedded linux on devices) cave without a lawsuit.
The GPL doesn't work that way.
See, you don't have to agree to the GPL unless you do something which would be violate copyright if "All Rights Reserved" were the license.
Downloading and running a program doesn't violate copyright even if all rights were reserved, assuming the person you are getting it from is duly authorized to distribute it to you (lets assume they are).
Using the program internally and modifying it also fall outside the realm of copyright law.
Only distribution triggers copyright law restrictions, and only then does the GPL apply.
So even if they wanted to, the GPL couldn't make the requirement to submit internally used changes back to the maintainer, without putting it into the weaker legal realm of a "click through" agreement, like an MS EULA, which is probably not enforcable except in UCITA states.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
no, because it says v2 or any subsequent version. If they did make a hypothetical, evil GPLv99 you could quite happily keep on using your code under v2. You wouldn't have to take it. As a result of this, you can't make the GPL any less free than it already is.
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
It's not a contradiction, but a misinterpretation.
The GPL version "2.2" is the DEVELOPMENT VERSION, which Prof. Molgen submitted to RMS for debate. To my knowledge, no one is using it (I haven't even SEEN it yet). The latest PRODUCTION VERSION is version 2, dated in 1991, the version that almost all GPL software is currently licensed under.
... And so it comes to this.
We ought to have discussion about the GNU General Public License (GPL) v3. The GPLv2 is an important license, the most widely used free software license. We should have critical discussions to help make the GPLv3 better, and of course defining "better" requires understanding the goals of the license.
But there's a profound unfairness in the two articles linked to here. They are filed in the "Linux & Open Source" section on the eWeek website, and not by accident. The GPL was initially written well before either the Linux kernel or the open source movement began and it was written to serve the purpose of furthering software freedom (an issue the open source movement does not want to talk about because it gets in the way of making their pitch to business, this movement's main audience, on "solid pragmatic grounds rather than ideological tub-thumping", as their FAQ says. This name-calling is starkly less insightful than the analysis the Free Software Foundation offers about the open source movement). So, there is simple miscrediting going on here, but it's also ironic that is no "GNU/Linux & Free Software" section at this website. Such a section would be far more accurate for describing stories about the most widely used and most important free software license.
When version 3 of the GNU GPL is released, it will be the first version to come out that had a chance of being edited by someone involved in the open source movement. As far as I can tell, nobody from the open source movement has had a hand in revising any version of the GPL. The GPL was written by people from the FSF (and the listed author is the FSF). Yet the GPL is routinely cited as an open source license by proponents of that movement, essentially taking credit for work that nobody in that movement did.
The Linux kernel is but one program in a complete GNU/Linux system. It's ironic that this license is so pivotal to the development of the GNU/Linux OS but GNU can't get just a share of the credit.
Of the two men featured in articles which are linked to in this Slashdot thread, one is an authority on the GPL and a co-author of the GPL, the other is someone who exhibits no significant insight into how the free software community came to be or what the GPL is here to accomplish. I'm grateful that Linus Torvalds began the Linux kernel and continues to work on the most widely used fork of that kernel, but this is not about the technical inner workings of the Linux kernel, where Linus Torvalds is unquestionably an authority on the matter. Torvalds is no authority on the GPL or software freedom in general. If you point your friends to these two articles, please don't give Moglen and Torvalds equal billing here. Equal billing would either diminish the attention we should pay to Moglen's comments on this matter or give Torvald's comments more attention than he deserves on this topic.
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