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Drafting GPL3
johns writes "In an article released yesterday, Eben Moglen and Richard Stallman outline four purposes of
the GPL, to explain the guideposts they will use in
drafting GPL3: the GPL is a worldwide copyright license, the code of
conduct for free software distributors, the constitution of the free
software movement, and the literary work of RMS. They also make this
commitment: 'The Foundation will, before it emits a first discussion
draft, publicize the process by which it intends to gather opinions
and suggestions.'"
What problem will v3 solve?
Unless there is some sort of benefit, why would anyone use it?
Will programs under the older versions of the license automatically fall under v3, or will the author have to explicitly state that? The license isn't very clear (at least not to my non-lawyerish eyes).
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
What happens with deceased people's code? Will I inherit granny's 200,000 lines of code? What do I do then? Will GPL 3 address that?
No. There is a reason for laws, even in a free society. That reason is that freedom cannot exist without rules. Freedom does not mean you can buy a car and run over some pedestrians. Laws are there to stop people from infringing on other people's freedoms.
Theft is infringing on someone's right to own stuff, murder is infringing on someone's right to live. And so on. However, laws like the Patriot act are not there to protect people's freedom from being infringed.
If there is freedom, there must be some kind of protection of that freedom.
And another reason for the GPL to require you to distribute GPL'd software is that all humans are equal, everyone should have access to free software.
To put it plain and simple, the GPL does not infringe on anyone's freedom, it protects freedom from being infringed.
And BSD-licensed software can't be distributed as you wish either, the advertising clause.
I wrote this to address exactly the mistake you are making.
GPL is not freedom for anyone. It is freedom for the software.
Well, quite frankly, BSD licensed software is not truly free
I guess some people are delusional enough to think that if they lie enough it'll become fact.
Sorry, nobody is buying that drivel except GNU fundies.
I was thinking of joining the FSF a few days back. Being european, I searched for a European division of FSF. I found this site. However, its page design made me suspicious. It looks too corporate to be FSF. FSF and GNU use simple design, not too colorful. Do you know if it's affiliated with FSF? I just need to make sure, cause I wouldn't like my donation to go to phisers. The site is called FSFE not FSF Europe. Also on the logo down the page it says FSFEurope not FSF Europe. And I couldn't find any link to FSF or some acknowledgment that they are affiliated. On the FSF site, I couldn't find any FSF Europe link, either. Then I found this site, which looks trustworthy, but it uses the same logo as fsfe.org. What's going on? (btw i'm posting as AC cause i modded)
Yes, I know RMS does not like this idea. But there does seem to be a lot of interest in making an "LGPL" that works the way users expect. In particular this means that you can statically-link with the library and release a closed-source version of the resulting program. Yet unlike the BSD license, you are not allowed to modify the library itself without releasing your modifications.
This license serves two purposes: first it makes your library much more popular. And it should be very good for algorithims like OGG that want to be used by closed programs, by eliminating the risk of an incompatable and secret fork.
Searching around I have seen many dozens of "exceptions to the GPL" to accomplish this, indicating that there are a lot of developers that want this. A standardized version would be very useful, with a name as recognizable as "LGPL" and "BSD".
Attached is my version, which is based on wxWindows. Paragraph 2 is changed to make it clear that you must release changes to the library itself.
Comments, anybody? What are the chances of an official version of this? As far as I can tell, the desire for this is the main force behind license proliferation.
1. As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give
permission for additional uses of the text contained in this release of the
library as licenced under the FLTK Library Licence, applying either version 2
of the Licence, or (at your option) any later version of the Licence as
published by the copyright holders of version 2 of the Licence document.
2. The exception is that you may use, copy, link, modify and distribute, under terms of your own choice, any works based on the library (including static linking), provided that the creation of this work does not require the modification of any of the source code of the library.
3. Modifications to the source code of the library do not fall under this
exception. However you may distribute the modified library under the normal
terms of this license and then distribute a work using this modified library
using this exception.
4. If you copy code from files distributed under the terms of the GNU General
Public Licence or the GNU Library General Public Licence into a copy of this
library, as this licence permits, the exception does not apply to the code
that you add in this way. To avoid misleading anyone as to the status of such
modified files, you must delete this exception notice from such code and/or
adjust the licensing conditions notice accordingly.
5. If you write modifications of your own for this library, it is your choice
whether to permit this exception to apply to your modifications. If you do
not wish that, you must delete the exception notice from such code and/or
adjust the licensing conditions notice accordingly.
I'm not sure what, exactly, constitutes "stirring up a tempest" but politics are at the heart of the matter when discussing licensing, certainly when comparing licenses that maintain a commons versus those that never say no. Accusations of this kind often come off as little more than attempts to shut people up without actually framing and defending any substantive issue; hardly discussion worthy of being called "insightful".
The GNU GPL is the most popular free software license, hence any changes to it will naturally attract attention. This doesn't mean that the FSF is causing problems or doing something harmful to licensees by engaging the public in the formation of the next version of the GPL. Quite to the contrary, if the FSF wrote the GPLv3 without input from anyone, they'd be rightly accused of being insular and they would run the risk of publishing a license that few would adopt. The commons they seek to create by using this license could shrink as a result. There were some substantive debates over the philosophy behind the GNU FDL (in part because it appeared that revision discussion was not taken into account or replied to) and, at first blush, it looks like the FSF would like to avoid repeating that.
The new BSD license, by contrast, is chosen chiefly by those who want to make a gift of code to all comers. This is an inherently political concern. The concept of creating a commons of code one can use copyright law to defend is not particularly attractive to these licensors. This doesn't mean they are taking a path worthy of less criticism.
Digital Citizen
You seem to be confusing freedom with privilege. Maybe you just don't have a dictionary, so I'll clue you in. Freedom is an absence of restriction. A free end of a rope is the end that is unrestricted. Free verse is poetry unrestricted by rhyme or meter. A free man is one unrestricted by external obligation to another.
There is no freedom to own slaves, because owning a slave is a restriction on the slave. Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose, because once it connects with my nose you are restricting me.
There is no need to limit (restrict) freedom in order to promote freedom. Those who claim otherwise are either confused, or mistaking their privileges for freedoms. Being able to restrict how your software can be distributed is a *privilege* provided by the state via copyright, not a freedom.
While the GPL does remove a heck of a lot of restrictions from the software, its restrictions are designed to protect the exclusive *privileges* of the author. The GPL author wants the license terms to apply to third parties, so he ensures this through privilege. He does this by removing freedom.
It's sort of like after the slaves were freed in the US. Several laws were passed to retain a tiny bit of the former privilege, to ensure that former slaves didn't get to uppity and behave in ways the "liberators" didn't want them to behave. It's why we had a civil rights movement a century later. The slaves should have been freed 100% back then, just as software should be 100% free today.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!