Slashdot Mirror
GPL v3 Coming Out in 2007?
gentoo1337 writes "Eben Moglen of the FSF speaks out in this ZDNet article, noting that GPL v3 may be publicly drafted in early 2006, and in force one year later. The process is very sensitive (noting concerns of forking in the Linux world), but Eben Moglen is optimistic: 'When it's all over, people are going to say, "All that talking for just that much change?" [...] We will do no harm. If we think (some change) may have any unintended consequences, we will not recommend making it.' Controversies aside, there is some good news -- Richard Stallman aims to 'lower barriers that today prevent the mixing of software covered by the GPL and other licenses.' The earlier Slashdot discussion contains complementary info about the intentions of FSF."
I was in Eben's talk. The following sentence from the summary is a but unclear:
lower barriers that today prevent the mixing of software covered by the GPL and other licenses.
What RMS means by this is compatibility with other Free software licenses (such as hopefully the Apache license), rather than compromise with proprietary software.
Right now GPLv2 pays lipservice to patents but doesn't really have strong sanctions against companies who use them to quash free software. The provisions it has are weak and arguably unenforceable if the company distributing GPL'd software suddenly decides to cease.
Nokia, for example, may be able to get away with deciding to end its distribution of GNU/Linux, then suing anyone who's made a derivative version that violates a patent of their's in a way that versions they shipped didn't. Indeed, it's quite possible that a third party entering new code that infringes upon a Nokia patent, even today, could be stopped by Nokia.
(If anyone thinks I'm being unfair to Nokia, yes, unless they actually do this, then I am being, but at the same time they put out a very, very, guarded comment a few months ago that quite obviously left these scenarios open.)
What many people want to see is companies that use patents against free software unable to use a large body of free software from there on. That means a solution to the above issue, but also to, say, discourage suing in general by ensuring that if a company chooses to deny the use of a patented technology to one free software project, it chooses to deny itself the use of any. So if IBM sues to get a technology out of, let's say, Apache, it can't turn around and continue to distribute a (theoretically GPLv3'd) Linux kernel.
Software patents were not a serious problem when the first two GPLs were drafted, though I believe they existed by the time the second version was created. They are now, and they pose a serious threat to free software.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Personally, I think that making internal changes and not sharing them with the world is against the spirit of the GPL.
Why do you think that? Do you think the same of companies that use GPL software *internally*? You've said yourself that this is okay, and in addition, RMS has gone out of his way to reject licenses that demand this. But what's the difference?
Applying the restrictions only within the legal domain of copyright **IS** the spirit of the GPL! To subsequently extend it beyond the domain of copyright to encompass the execution of software on servers is what is against the spirit of the GPL.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
All you have to do is distribute your program under the GPL, and provide a file saying "you are granted the rights to redistribute under the GPL, however you also are granted the right to link against this program and redistribute freely so long as you do so only via the interfaces declared in public_interface.h."
It is as simple as that. The Linux Kernel, as it happens, does almost exactly this.
Another option is that you could put some parts of your program (the "private" parts) under the GPL and other parts (the "public" parts) under the LGPL. I have seen programs that did exactly this.
The GPL does not restrict rights. It only grants them. As the copyright holder, you are of course free to grant as many other rights as you want in addition to the GPL rights. Of course, you can't speak for any other copyright holders that may have provided material in the program...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
You don't need any license to use a GPL'd program. You only need a license if you want to redistribute it.
The reason you need the license to redistribute the computer program is because copyright law says you have no right to do so otherwise.
How about Slashdot posts?
0 2/03/1359232&tid=117&tid=156&tid=17
Newsforge previews GPLv3, part 1
Preview, part 2
FSF's Bradley Kuhn interview
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/
Debian and ZDNet discusses GPLv3
Business impact of GPLv3
Purpose of GPLv3 according to RMS and Moglen
Je ne parle pas francais.
Well, the recommended wording reads (emphasis mine):
As an author you needn't worry about having to pay licensing fees, since the GPL governs redistribution and doesn't take away the author's copyright. Furthermore, you needn't worry about people being forced to pay licensing fees to redistribute your software, since they can always elect not to apply the terms of the new license.This issue is covered in the GPL FAQ.
(ex post facto disclaimer: IANAL)