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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."
Am I the only one who thinks it's going to take longer? Given the number of parties/factions involved (FSF, EFF, RedHat, Linus, ESR, etc.), I think it may take longer. I know that not all those people have to have the new GPL "cleared" with them, but I'm sure they'll all want to weigh in on the process, which will likely lengthen it.
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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...
Some people have expressed concern that organizations can take GPL'd code, modify it, and then run a web site with it. The act of running a web site using GPL code isn't considered distribution by the FSF, and the source code modifications therefore can be kept to themselves.
That's the argument. Personally, I don't know how I feel about it one way or the other.
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.
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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.
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Am I the only one who's tired of hearing that GPL v3 is coming real soon now? What's the use in talking about it if there are no drafts to discuss?
(Obligatory: I wonder if Duke Nukem Forever for the Phantom console will be licensed under GPL v3...)
They're trying to not mess up all the ways that GPLed code is used. That's not easy, because it's used a lot of different ways. And, they are trying to build a license that will not fail when subjected to the next ten years' worth of (currently) unknown attacks. (Look at how GPL 2 stood up under SCO's attack, and you'll see what I mean.)
This isn't just "slap together a license, and we'll fix it next week if we don't get it right the first time". Since some some projects don't use the "or any later version" clause, some code will probably be licensed under GPL 3 forever. And seeing from here to forever is hard, even on a clear day...
This all sounds very reasonable and careful. Why are the FSF people -esp. RMS- portrayed as being zealots here on /.?
Of course they have an agenda. They may be (described as) somewhat fundamentalistic. But it seems that they are still arguing in very reasonable ways.
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.
I'd sure love to hear ESR's input as to what goes into GPL3
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sellout poser.
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Some people have expressed concern that organizations can take GPL'd code, modify it, and then run a web site with it. The act of running a web site using GPL code isn't considered distribution by the FSF, and the source code modifications therefore can be kept to themselves.
Running a web site isn't considered distribution by copyright either, and that's what really matters here. The GPL doesn't go into effect until you try to make a copy of the software, and even when it's in effect, you only have to distribute the source code to the people you distribute binaries to. If you only distribute it internally, then it really doesn't make a difference. Technically, a new version of the GPL could say that you have to give a copy of the code to the FSF if you want to distribute binaries at all, even within your own organization, but I don't think many people would actually want to use that license.
Personally, I think that making internal changes and not sharing them with the world is against the spirit of the GPL. People gave their work to you for free, and you don't want to give your changes back as payback? That's pretty lame. However, I don't think there's any practical way for a new version of the GPL to prevent it. Smart people try to get their changes accepted upsteam anyway so they don't have to maintain patches and make sure they apply and don't introduce new bugs. It's just less work.
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...
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I actually agree with a fair amount of this regarding licence-free software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/License-free_software
The subject says it all.
With luck, the GPL v3 will clear up the issue of fonts. The issue has been discussed on Slashdot before.Namely, that if I use a GPL font in a document, and subsequently embed that font through a document format (OO's sxw or OpenDocument, pdf, ps, etc), it's unclear as to whether I have the legal ability to do so without declaring the document itself GPL (which isn't really a document license). People sometimes (apparently mistakenly, but IANAL) say that it would force your document to be GPLed, but that's really not the case. You can't be automatically forced to license your work as anything, but you can be guilty of copyright infringement. The issue does also apparently not extend to printed documents and such, since the font itself cannot be copyrighted, only the code (postscript, etc) that generates the font can be.
It's unfortunate that such vagueness persists with the GPL, but it seems to be a trend with copyright issues in general (fair use being the most visible).
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Free software [development] does not appear to have any viable method of recouping development costs (particularly initial development costs).
Sure it does: if you want a particular feature developed, hire some programmers to write the necessary code. You just have to realize programmers are providing a service, rather than manufacturing a good.
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Some people have expressed concern that organizations can take GPL'd code, modify it, and then run a web site with it. The act of running a web site using GPL code isn't considered distribution by the FSF, and the source code modifications therefore can be kept to themselves.
To state the concern more clearly say EvilCompany takes gcc, does some crazy optimizations, and starts running it on their server never releasing the code, call it pgcc (propietary gcc). Then they sell a small app ttpgcc (talking to propietary gcc) which communicates over the internet to pgcc. ttpgcc sends the code and whatever args to pgcc, which then compiles it and sends back the binary (assuming mad bandwidth and stuff). The user never recieves a copy of pgcc, thus they have no rights to the code under the gpl, however through ttpgcc EvilCompany is now selling an app which is effect a forked version of gcc.
I don't know how to disallow this scenario yet allow a webserver in a license but this certainly presents a problem.
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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.