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."
Being that 99 44/100% of all GPL'd software originally came out under the current GPL, will there be any version conflicts with currently licensed software? I.e. if the newer license is *less* restrictive on some point, can existing software licensing be "upgraded" to the new license without have to obtain the acceptance of every single contributor?
P.S. This is a real question, not a flamebait or troll...
Sorry for sounding pedantic, but he announced this at the FSF associate members meeting March 26th. I'm surprised nobody came out with this info earlier.
Freedom is strength, Ignorance is peace, War is slavery.
Yeah, heaven forbid that the users of the GPL would have any say in how it works.
All I want is the ability to declare public and private interfaces for GPL products, where public interfaces can be used with any type of license and private interfaces are off-limits unless you're a GPL project.