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GPL to be Modified to Penalize Patents and DRM

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the license-to-chill dept.

null etc. writes "MSNBC is running an article about how upcoming changes to the GPL will retaliate against companies that patent software or produce DRM'ed products. "Software patents are clearly a menace to society and innovation. We like this to be more explicit. The basic idea is that if someone patents software, he loses the right to use free software. It's like a patent retaliation clause.""

2 of 665 comments (clear)

  1. GPoliticaL by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1, Troll

    The GPL is a license. It's an agreement between the parties using the software: producer and consumer (including subsequent developer). What does that have to do with the political agenda of "fighting software patents"? The GPL protects the software it covers from being patented. Its distributors have no further rights beyond the use of the software they provide under the GPL. Certainly not rights to tell the user what they can do with other software that doesn't touch the GPL'd software.

    I share the political agenda that opposes software patents. But the GPL is absolutely inappropriate for use in that political battle. How does antipatent clause keep the GPL'd software any more free? Of course it doesn't - and it doesn't keep the user any more free, either. It removes their freedom to do as they please with other code, even code they write themselves. This is an outrageous political stunt, a transformation of the merely legal GPL to a political weapon in a larger, only tangentially related war.

    What happens when Chinese software makers include a license that says users must not "oppose the will of the people, the rule of the Politburo"? What happens when Pakistani programmers require that users submit to the will of Allah before linking to their libraries? What happens when Texan programmers require users to register Republican before distributing their patched version of the new CRM package? Probaly, everyone will ignore those political terms. Maybe everyone will refuse to use the package. Either of those responses to a political GPL will destroy the effectiveness of the GPL, almost entirely a voluntary honor system just beginning to pick up momentum. For the sake of our code, the GPL, and our freedom, we must not let them screw us all with a political GPL that leverages our freedom into enlising us in their political agenda.

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    make install -not war

  2. Stallman's feeble attempts at politics will fail by aCapitalist · · Score: 1, Troll

    "We're fundamentally opposed to DRM. We think it's a dead end for society," Greve said, adding all software should be free to use and that artists could be paid for their films and music by a general 'taxation' on Internet connections.

    I guess Greve is a new minion/spokesperson for Stallman.

    First off, I'm sure filmakers and musicians will be oh so happy to "socialize" their media. Not.

    But Stallman's attempt to put his politics into the license will result in utter failure. DRM is here whether Stallman or slashdotters like it or not, and any attempt to "punish" these people will just result in utter failure for the GPL v3 - even if the license is legal.

    This stuff coupled with extending the viralness of GPL v3 in relation to web services will just result in people using GPL v2 and making GPL v3 completely irrelevant and Stallman and the FSF even more irrelevant than they are today.