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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.'"
the code of conduct for free software distributors
*THE* code of conduct? Not *A* code of conduct? I bet the BSD folks would have something to say about that.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
GPL v2 doesn't specifically address the patent problem. Anyway, here's the story on Revising the GPL.
They specify the four pillars of GPL3:
1) GPL is a worldwide copyright license, 2) the code of conduct for free software distributors, 3)the constitution of the free software movement, 4) and the literary work of RMS
The problem is that (1) has always been limited by the FSF's unwillingness to translate the GPL into any other language. How they plan to make it an international license without actually translating it ought to be interesting.
(2) is already pretty much taken care of. You use GPL code in your code and then distribute it, you have to open up your code under GPL conditions. I can't imagine what will change.
I'm not sure what they plan to get out of (3). The GPL is the General Public License. It may be drafted by the FSF, but it is intended for broad usage by many different people. If they want to have a constitution, they ought to make one, for their organization. Trying to pretend like their organization represents the entire movement is silly and pure hubris.
As for (4), who cares except for RMS what literary works he's published? More hubris.
It seems that like the Perl camp, the FSF can't leave good enough alone and is slowly imploding under the pressure of their own navel gazing.
GPL 2.0 is fine and clear. GPL 3 looks to be an FSF circle jerk in honor of RMS. Count me out.
what's the point in free software if you can turn it into a non-free product?
To have the freedom to do whatever you want with the code? Isn't that the ultimate freedom?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Maybe the parent was being funny, but certainly not interesting.
I think there should be customizable skins, those make everything better.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Just because the GNU folks call it "free" doesn't mean it is free in all ways. A GNU license ensures the *user* has the most freedom, and a BSD license ensures the *developers* have the most freedom. In either case, the other group loses some freedom. A GNU license creates a situation where developers cannot merge published code with their proprietary code, while a BSD license creates a situation where some users might not have access to a particular modified variant of the published code.
[
Make sure that GPL3 is human-readable, as version 2 was. I absolutely hate reading legalese. It really bothers me that so many important things in my life (such as student loans, credit cards, computer software) assume that I am capable of understanding, and hold me accountable to understand the contents of legal documents. I appreciate the simplicity of the GNU GPL, and consider it an essential feature of the license. The BSD license is even simpler.
<tangent>One thing that bothers me is when GPL software requires that you agree to the license during the install procedure. The GPL is not an end-user license; it is a distribution license. You must accept and comply with the terms of the license if you wish to redistribute GPL'ed works. End users are not required to agree to anything in order to simply use it, or even to modify it for their own use.</tangent>
Don't get me wrong. BSD is a fine license all right, but nothing special compared to the protected freedom of GPL.
While I prefer the GPL over BSD (and similar licences) -- the GPL does not work well in all situations. For example, anything that requires a reference design that you want to be widely adopted. The Ogg codecs (Vorbis, Theora, ...) for example.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Freedom requires life; software itself cannot suffer from a lack of freedom.
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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.