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RMS Previews GPL3 Terms
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent interview, ESR shocked a lot of people when he said,
'We don't need the GPL anymore.' Federico Biancuzzi contacted RMS, founder of the Free Software Movement and initial developer of the GNU system, to talk about the past, the present, and the future of the GNU GPL. Among other things, they discussed the new clauses of the upcoming GPL version 3."
...acknoledges the need for copyrights and/or IP laws. RMS is finally being consistent.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
What do you mean?
If you release a program that implements such a command, GPL 3 will require others to keep the command working in their modified versions of the program.
Isn't it a slippery road to go down when the license mandates a feature-set? It seems to make a mockery of the 'free to modify' mantra. In fact it seems to be 'not free' in that sense.
This new version, and later ones will confuse, fragment, and even make illegal many contributions and/or projects in the future. I think this will prove to be a weak link in Free Software as people try to mix GPL2 with GPL3 projects, and make a mess of things. Whatever benefits there are of GPL v3, they will be overshadowed by this mess it will create.
In a recent interview, Eric Raymond shocked many Free Software developers. Interviewed developers commented "What? Is he still around? Now there is someone you don't think about anymore." Raymond's contentious statements were uniformly viewed as desperate cries for attention by a once notable software developer. A sympathetic developer commented, "I certainly hope ESR gets the professional counciling he so obviously needs; he just needs to learn that you can lead a productive life outside the limelight. I know of a good support group for people like him and Dvorak."
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RMS would've made a great Supreme Court justice, had he gotten his law degree
All developers and advocates of GPL software hereby agree to bathe on a minimum of a daily basis. Those developers that face the public further agree that they will brush their teeth priort to any such encounter, no matter how brief!
I could believe this part, especially coming from RMS. It's no wonder ESR said we didn't need the GPL anymore.
It's 2005, not 1985. We've learned a lot in the last 20 years.
Yeah we learned we need it more than ever before. Just imagine the SCO history without the GPL.
If you rigorously cling on to values (like GPL and free speech) people think you're a zealot. Until the same people realize they themselves were idiots. GPL is what got Linux this far -and not it's technical superiority over whatever- and it remains needed to prevent doctor evils screwing people over.
There's also the freedom to refrain from using the GPL and stop whining.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
This is about allowing people who release server software to mandate that any modified server running publicly will have to release the modified source code. That is the command he is talking about, and only that. Id hardly call that a feature set.
Seems a decent enough idea in this day and age, if everyone starts running thin clients with proprietary code on the servers then the GPL becomes a bit useless.
Just downloaded and installed the beta. Feels much snappier than the last release.
I'll keep you guys posted.
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
At last someone on the GPL 3 team has said something that belays my fears about Services and the GPL version 3. The fear was that they would force you to give users access to GPLed code you use when you provide a service - for example forum software. From the article, they talk about developers including an ability to have the service software offer the sourcecode, and the GPL protecting this particular part of the program but not forcing developers to include it in the first place. While this does stop the fears that you would have to provide the sourcecode for every bit of GPL code you use in your service, it does open the door for limitations on modifications in GPLed programs, similiar to invariant sections in the Gnu Documentation License, and Im not decided if this is a good approach or not.
Federico Biancuzzi is just plainly incompetent on the subject of software licenses. See his old interview to RMS to see how often RMS must clarify basic issues to him, and misuderstands Biancuzzi's dumb questions. I'm not going to read TFA this time.
Recognizing the need for the GPL acknowledges the need for copyrights and/or IP laws. RMS is finally being consistent.
RMS has always been very consistent on this point. In his view, copyright is a bad thing because it restricts freedom. He views the GPL as necessary because the bad thing exists, and has always described the GPL as a form of legal judo, fighting the enemy with his own strength.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
fragile. Maybe the GPL needs to be simpler, not more complex.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
Try *reading* the GPL. Its pretty much as simple as could be. It's way simpler than Microsoft's EULAs for example, even though the GPL gives you some freedoms and the EULAs just restrict your rights.
I'd say around June 1991
Talk about hiding in a cave ;) Version 2 was released in June 1991. Version 1 was released in February 1989.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
WTF?
I know the GLP having read it. I question why ver. 3 will actually help keep code freely available.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
The problem with GNU and the proposed GNU 3 is that is is getting more and more political, and more of the politics are getting further away from just Open Source. Things like preventing GNU software to use DRM, and certon rules on pattents. While we can debate these are things are good or evil, as for as I see it shouldn't matter if it is GNU or not, if this keeps on growing, then there will be restrictions on if we use the GNU program for warfare, or in a government that we don't like. Keep the GNU Simple that is the only way to keep GNU goodness, when you keep on adding restrictive clauses it will become more and more evil.
Yes people will use GNU software the way you didn't want them too. This is part of making a license.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Ask the FSF's compliance lab: And OT, when has the FSF revamped their website? Nifty.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
GNU was always about the 'Free Software' ideal, NOT Open Source... get it right!
The GPL is an anchor of freedom. It has nothing to do with technical merits of ones software. It has everything to do with making software freely available and open in communal fashion. I'd like to think of the GPL as a digital library of function; with protection for not only the developer but the user. Similar to fountains of knowledge that have existed through out history allowing human-kind to prosper. It should be noted that all communes and libraries of the past that operated as a hub of knowledge have been almost entirely destroyed with few exceptions. I find it hard how one would do this with the digital medium but moving along.
ESR seemingly doesn't understand that if it was simply about technical merit and time. In another 20 years we'll look back and it'll be a different story. Isn't history one of ESR's strong points? Here is another reason why ESR can't be coined as a forefront in opensource or what we all deem to be some form of movement. His views are totally not inline with freedom and freedom is what this is about. You release under GPL as a form of solidarity? How about in the future you refrain from releasing under the GPL and release under the license that you think is best. Solidarity and cowardness go hand in hand when you're in the minority.
RMS on the other hand needs to learn that one can't force freedom. You can only protect it and the primary goal should be protection for the user and developer. The external parties should not matter beyond that. If they benefit in fashion from the GPL then one should not prevent that. This doesn't mean that the GPL should never change; I have faith that RMS will learn better to adapt the GPL to current environments as well as forseeing the road ahead.
None the less my personal views are that RMS is a leader and ESR as a mumbling imbecile and sideliner. As much as people dislike RMS and fight and rally against him. He never sidelines and he never stands in solidarity with a position he disagrees with. He stands firmly in his belief for freedom and provided the framework on which I make my living, how I learned to make my living and how I even enjoy myself every now and then.
So, unlike the rest of you; after I pickup my girl from the airport i'll have a beer in the name of RMS. Cheers; and thanks.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
GPL is not needed, GUNS are enough -and required- to protect the interest of the shareholders^Wprogrammers.
Eric? Is that you?! Please log in before you post, thanks.
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Eric is right. He doesn't need the GPL because the GPL is for people who actually write code.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Then access your MySQL database over TCP/IP or a socket. No linking involved at all, thus no problem with GPL.
Subject basically says it all. The so-called "Trusted Computing Platform" involves nothing more than having public-key encryption implemented in hardware, under the control of the BIOS. It can (in theory) be used for DRM, but can also be used merely to enhance the security of your system. The so-called "vendor key" may not have any practical, non-evil uses, but nobody is forcing you to use it. Personally, I'd like to have a system with TC hardware. (As long as any "remote control" functionality can be disabled, which, I suspect, would be hard NOT to arrange.)
DRM, on the other hand, is pretty much an unmitigated evil. However, that said, I think the approach taken by the GFDL is the wrong one. I'd prefer to see distribution on DRM-controlled platforms allowed as long as unrestricted versions are available to anyone who gets a DRM'd copy. In other words, I'd like to see DRM treated by documentation licenses more-or-less the way binaries are treated by the GPL.
The GPL doesn't restrict your rights, it grants you rights. Therefore, an open ended version 2 or later clause is OK, since it can only grant you more rights, it cannot take any rights away that you already have.
Oh well, what the hell...
Does anybody know who is ESR?
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
ESR's position against Free Software has always seemed slightly irrational (or at least unjustified) to me, but I always put it down to no more than him trying to get some more limelight for his Open Software efforts. That would be unfortunate, but no biggie.
But now that he has publicly gone anti-GPL by saying that it is no longer needed, I think that ESR is finally showing his true colours.
In a world where Free+Open Software ruled the roost (we're not quite there yet), the only people for whom the GPL might no longer be needed are those people who have an army of paid-up lawyers behind them, in other words, the corporations. Everyone else would get screwed by the first well-financed litigious bloodsucker that comes along and markets the software without respecting its authors' desired freedoms.
So, it's pretty simple: ESR is pro-business, and actively desires individuals to be powerless and trodden underfoot in the corporate rush for profits.
That's pretty bad, not far off from being "evil". I must say, I didn't really expect that from ESR.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I can't think of any circumstance that would induce me to run a kernel I didn't build myself.
How about the circumstance in which all kernels except the one approved by your ISP will fail to get an IP address?
And like a lot of security-oriented systems, it's not that secure if you have physical acccess to the machine.
Try telling that to anybody who has tried to crack the most recent DirecTV access cards.