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GPL 3 May Require Websites to Relinquish Code
Vicissidude writes "At present, companies that distribute GPL-licensed software must make the source code publicly available, including any modifications they've made. Though the rule covers many businesses that use GPL-licensed software for commercial ends, it doesn't cover Web companies that use such software to offer their services through the Web, as they're not actually distributing the software.
GPL 3, the next version of the free software license, a draft of which is expected to be released in early 2006, may close this loophole, GPL author and Free Software Foundation head Richard Stallman said in an interview."
To understand the GPL (version 3, but really this applies to previous versions as well) you have to stop thinking as a programmer, and start thinking as a user. (It has always surprised me that hackers (of all the people in the world?!) have been the advocates of GPL. Hackers and programmers have the least incentive, of all the population, to need this. GPL is for users.) Preferably, as a helpless user whose ass has been bitten by proprietary software. (Remember RMS and his damned printer driver in 1983.)
Imagine you are a user of proprietary software. One day, you need maintenance. Maybe you need a new feature, or maybe you need a bugfix, or maybe an update removed a feature that you still need. And imagine you're dependent on this software. You have lots of existing documents stored in a proprietary format that only this software can use. You have been trained to use this software and not trained to use its competitor. You need it.
But the company who made this software went out of business 4 years ago. Or they simply don't give a damn about you and will not customize their shrink-wrapped product for your obscure pathetic little whiney need, because you're as insignificant as a cockroach to them. Or they want to charge you $500 per hour for their work. Or the feature that you want happens to be against the law in their jurisdiction. Or they're just incompetent.
You're fucked. Nobody can (or will) help you. Do you really give a damn whether the software happens to run on your local machine (it was "distributed" to you) or on a remote machine? And get this: if it runs remotely, then even if it's Free Software instead of proprietary, then you're still fucked, unless the programmer happens to be a nice guy.
GPL is about freedom of maintenance. It should be a guarantee that you can always get maintenance. As a last resort, you can always do the work yourself or hire whoever you want who is qualified, to handle whatever you need done. GPL is a major development in safety from ever being orphaned or exploited. It forces software maintenance into a free market.
As a programmer, if you build derived works of GPLed code, and have users who merely use your software (without distributing it to them) you are creating a situation where those users are dependent on you. They are unable to modify the software or hire someone else to do that. If you die, lose interest in the project, get in a dispute with them, etc, then they're screwed. That's totally contrary to the intent of GPL, and that's why it's a loophole.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This comment regards your sig, and what you're addressing in your comment. Because they contradict each other:
Why do the folks who insist on keeping "God" in "one nation under God" want to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
You speak here of fundamental rights and freedoms in the US. Yet, it your post you say, "Freedom isn't a big deal. Who cares about it? No one. What people want is good software."
That's true. Did you know that the USSR had a 0% unemployment rate? Everyone had a job. Did you see the unemployed from capitalist, and socialist countries moving to the communist USSR? No.
Because Good just isn't good enough. At some point you have to lay down that you feel that people have a Right to your code, because you said so, and that no amount of "better" that can be tacked onto that program trumps that Right to keep seeing the source code.
Yes, it's advancing an ideology, and not advancing good software, but that's not the point. The F/OSS community doesn't have the mission statement "A computer on every desk running F/OSS." So our goal is *not* to force our software on everyone. F/OSS is driven by the goal of Free (as in Speech) Software For All Mankind.
If you don't like it, go back to using Windows, because that's Good Software. Meanwhile others who agree with the ideology will keep using Linux, because it's Free Software. Not because Linux is better than Windows, but because you feel that access to the source code should be a Right, not a Priviledge.
(Statements are my own, and do not reflect those of the company I work for.)
I am unamerican, and proud of it!