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GPL 3.0 Rewrite Drive Is No Democracy
linumax writes "Users will be free to comment on the upcoming complex and technical draft versions of the GNU General Public License 3.0 in an easy way, according to Eben Moglen, general counsel for the Free Software Foundation. However, Moglen said Wednesday, speaking at the Open Source Business Conference here, the rewrite of the GPL is not an election and there will be no voting on its clauses. In a session entitled GPL 3.0: Directions, Implications, Casualties, Moglen said that when GPL 2.0 was promulgated some 14 years ago, very few people cared about it. On the advice of a few dozen people and a couple of lawyers, it was written and released. "That was a fine system then. It is not a fine system now. I expect the process around GPL 3.0, when it begins in some 60 to 90 days' time, to collect a great deal of comment from people on the draft documents... ", He said."
Everybody knows those GNU people are a bunch of Commies. :)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
does that mean that the GPL is *NOT* open source? (you can see but you can't touch)?
But... I thought... GPL... open... *HEAD EXPLODES*
However, Moglen said Wednesday, speaking at the Open Source Business Conference here, the rewrite of the GPL is not an election and there will be no voting on its clauses. He couldn't be more wrong. If people don't like the rewrite, they won't use it.
Dog is my co-pilot.
When I saw this article I thought there was some new GPLed DVD R/W drive or something.
It would be nice if a balance could be struck between the ideals of the GPL (which I don't oppose) and some other licenses. For example, it would be nice to see compatibility with the Eclipse Public License (which the FSF doesn't seem to think poorly of, it just happens to be incompatible). Please note, I'm *NOT* seeking an FSF sell out of their ideals here, I ascribe to them myself in my private Open Source contributions, but rather consideration of how not to have the GPL be an impediment to projects that don't violate those ideals, but happen to be using other licenses.
Is old software which simply states that it is released under the terms of the GPL construed to always be tracking the latest version? What if the author doesn't want to? I hope new releases will have to specifically state that they are using GPL 3.0?
Most of us here on slashdot have an opinion on what should be going on in the GPL, but obviously most of us are not lawyers. This is, without a doubt, a legal matter, and this thing needs to be airtight. I wouldn't want this thing to be a true democracy, but hopefully they will be willing to listen to a little input here and there.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Everybody's free to leave that out when applying the license to a new program.
Well, he does have a point. Technical things like this should probably be written by experts on the subject matter rather than being decided by everyone who just happens to have an opinion after they read about it on Slashdot; and for that matter, nobody's being forced to use the license for anything, anyway.
And if you don't like the new GPL... feel free to modify it to your liking. There's already a few pieces of software out there that use a modified GPL v2 (typically, these are projects that are GPL'ed but grant you special permission to link with this or that non-free library even though this would otherwise not be allowed by the GPL), so you could do the same thing here.
And to those who'll reply now and tell me that I can't modify the GPL because the license as such is itself copyrighted to the FSF... I insist that that's irrelevant, as a license is not a creative work but rather a technical description of the terms the author offers you the software under.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
By another token, Open Source is being used by companies as a way to get individuals to create code without compensating them. This unfairly competes with the American software industry, and exploits what was intended to be a reliable means of assuring access to code to effectively outsource a whole chunk of what used to be paying jobs -- thus stagnating the future creation of code.
So hopefully the new (GNU?) GPL will address some of these concerns as well as the issues software patents create for the individual developer.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
This obsession people seem to have with democracy is silly. Do doctors and nurses in the operating room vote on how to proceed with an operation? Should pilots ask for a vote on how to land a plane?
There are plenty of things democracy is good for, but sometimes you have to leave decisions in the hands of people more qualified than the average person.
I would accuse Moglen of putting forth a straw man argument about putting each clause up for a vote, but it's clear from the description that someone had suggested that. How stupid.
I expect that the GPL3 will be looked over and hashed about by enough people. Hopefully it will be a fine license for the near future, and not just for the recent past.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Not really. It won't require you to give up your website code for using Apache, it will require you to release the code if you base yourself off of a GPLed piece of websoftware- for existance, one of the many GPLed CMSes. Thats the exact same case as someone who releases a piece of non-web software and uses GPLed code. It levels the playing field so you can't just use GPLed code without recontributing just because you're ont he web.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Exactly! This needs to be professionally written in such a way that it has a very good chance of standing up in court. To take a vote among a group of legally unqualified geeks will not help achieve this.
And the brethren went away edified.
People will vote with their feet. The review and editing process will mold and shape the final GPL v3. Then the voting begins as people pick their licenses going forwards. Either they'll pick GPL v3 or will stick to some other license.
Voting won't change the contents of GPL v3 directly, but the fact that people will vote with their feet after it's released still means the broader community will have some impact. Either that, or FSF will demonstrate itself to be focused only on its own needs and interests, and so may alienate others. I don't think they've ever been too afraid of alienating others in the interest of maintaining ideological purity. So, it'll be interesting to see how effective the review and feedback process is, and how many people actually adopt GPL v3, and what impact that has on any follow-ons to GPL v3.
--Joe
Program Intellivision!
> For the sake of truly free programming, we have to tear down the zealots speaking on our behalf.
We wouldn't even be having this discussion if not for those zealots.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Moglen I think sometimes goes too far. Isn't he the one that feels that if a GPL'd program is used to _produce_ code that that code should be gpl'd also. I don't remember the details but I think it had something to do with companys using open source products to produce web sites that interact with the public.
It seems to me that if we aren't careful we won't be able to use gcc or any other open source compilers to produce non-GPL'd code even if they are linked only to non-GPL'd libraries. Don't get me wrong, GPL'd code is great but Linux should be a platform that allows both open and closed source applications.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Why is this presented as a netgative?
This is how it works, voting!=good decisions. There are more than enough examples that just having the 'right' to vote is of no real benefit. Recent history being an example. The point is responsibility. Not 'rights'. Rights do not come free of charge, they come with responsibility. Simply because you are not accustomed to recognizing that responsibility and think its 'absence' is some sort of melevolant action, is quite frankly, naive.
If you think you have something important to CONTRIBUTE to this license that is being developed, then get off your fat ass and make yourself heard. They are ASKING for you to do that if you simply read the statements of the organizers. But since nobody ever does... here it is; This will also be a very public and watched process and so we need those leaders in the community to step forward and play an important role. It is also rare that we get to see a license under development and to get involved in that process," she said.
It just isnt possible that there is nobody competent enough on slashdot, who has editor status, who can write an article that presents the IMPORTANT parts of the story, and not the sensationalist parts...
Im just guessing that the editor is american, because nobody else is so disconnected from the responsibilities that come with voting as americans seem to be.
I for one welcome our GNU GPL overlords.
No, seriously, they are smart people and I trust they will do a good job. In the unlikely event that I don't like what they've written I won't use it for my projects.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
ou created an account just for that comment? I really think you need to get a life.
This is the future of Slashdot. Really, how many comments here are truly original? One man with a few dozen such accounts could replace 90% of posts on Slashdot!
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
You described demagogy. Here in Mexico City, governor wants to use polls for everything, so that the easily-manipulable people will vote in favor of whatever the government tells them. The same thing is done by Hugo Chavez. All decisions aren't taken by him, but by the uninformed / misinformed people.
A true democracy, however, is about the people choosing someone who will take the decisions, whether the people like it or not. They chose him to take responsibility for his actions.
And certainly I think that Richard Stallman would be the person I'd vote for. In any case, the experts are already deciding for us. And that's good.
The proposed change would thwart removal of a button to download software that an author put in, not make a download button manditory. This interesting and mild idea is being considered carefully to avoid problems it might cause if abused by contributors.
There's more, but it's not worth the trouble to detail. That last Slashdot story was just more BS from another Wintel rag.
If you have a real objection to a real proposed change, let's hear it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Dude... the whole *idea* behind the GPL is an ideological war. If you want "truly free programming" go pick up BSD software, and leave the GPL alone. Until you do that, the only reason you *have* the GPL is because some zealots had the stones to think it up to enforce their zealotrous ideology.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
The democracy comes when people adopt the new license. I predict it will be draconian, specifying that people who merely interoperate with GPL3 SW will have to publish source code. Just leveraging the market share of GPL software to force other authors to go GPL, regardless of justice, fairness, or any other consideration than Moglen and Stallman's revolutionary fervor.
Which is too bad. A sensible GPL3 that people would adopt would address interop by making only reasonable demands. Just as we got, in addition to GPL, an LGPL, we also need an AGPL for APIs and interfaces. Which require any app that interoperates with an AGPL app to open, publish and document its APIs, and carry the AGPL. That would make AGPL apps virally force developers to open interfaces. The denial of which openness is indefensible, except on the basis of programmers' rights to do anything we want, except when bound by agreement otherwise. API access is even more important than source code access, though it comes along with OSS (except for real, explicit documentation). And API access is the biggest drag on interop, where getting the rest of the source is usually just a bonus.
There's nothing magic about Moglen. He's just the expert who wrote the last GPL(s). There's no reason we can't write a forked "GPL 3.0", which merely requires the AGPL I described, even using those GPLs as the original "source" from which to produce the new version. When it proves more popular than Moglen's GPL 3.0, democracy and open source will have conspired in the market for maximum freedom, as chosen by the free.
--
make install -not war
It's not a democracy. It's more of a meritocracy. It isn't entirely without representation, however. The members of the FSF that will ultimately make the final decisions have gained their considerable power by the choice of the masses that use their software and licenses. RMS is nothing without the collective respect of the thousands (millions?) that use his code, licenses, and philosophy in their own projects. They are, in a sense, casting their vote for him -- recognizing his importance -- every time they type code in EMACS, compile with GCC, or slap a GPL on their latest release.
If FSF were a government that had the means to force your use of their code and licenses, things would be different. All use of FSF and related projects is completely voluntary. No one forced these hoardes of end-users and developers to hold these individuals in high regard. They have chosen to do so based on their past merit. Because of this, if at any time the FSF were to violate that trust, it's power would evaporate overnight. The masses of FOSS enthusiasts from which they derive their power would throw their support behind another organization (fork?). There is nothing stopping them from doing so. This is why, although not a direct democracy, the FSF knows it must at the very least hear our opinions and take them into consideration or face irrelevancy.
Regardless of all this, I'm rather tired of sound-bites proclaiming democracy as the end-all, be-all of government. Might (sheer numbers/popularity) does not make right. Democratic principles should be observed, but within certain agreed-upon limits -- the rule of law. A majority should not have the power to vote for enslaving a minority, for example. This is why the right to defend one's own liberty, and the rules of the game that permit that liberty -- the law, is so crucial. If a majority rises up with the purpose of oppressing my minority, I have to be prepared to enforce the rules, the limits -- ensure that they are adhered to -- as Malcolm X put it: "by any means necessary."
---
I lived for 2 years in Siberia and often bought ice cream from street vendors when it was below freezing. It makes life easier for the street vendors - they don't have to plug in their portable ice chests... =)
On the advice of a few dozen people and a couple of lawyers, it was written and released.
Wow, both people and lawyers...
The GPL only has 1 restriction and that is that if you distribute the software the recipients get all the same rights you do.
The ONLY thing you aren't permitted to do is give them less than you have, which isn't that bad because it wasn't your software to begin with.
GPL is for people who want their free software to stay free, and not get embraced and extended by someone else.
There are (for the purpose of this post) innumerable possible licenses out there. Only one of them will be called GPL3.0, but if you don't like the one arbitrarily named GPL3.0 you are perfectly free to use one of the others. Keep using GPL2.0, for instance. The democracy in the GPL3.0 is VOLUNTARY ADOPTION. This license will not be foisted on anyone.
The real problem is that lots of people may dislike GPL3.0, and they will likely go with plan B, which may not be the same license as everyone else. Then we will all have to read the fine print again. Of course, upon rejection of the GPL3.0 license, these same dissenters can (and probably will) wish they had an acceptible GPL, which provides the perfect motivation for a GPL3.1 fork. We all have to choose between the LGPL and the GPL as things stand, because there was a bifurcation in the types of GPL software, their users and their respective licensing needs. It isn't clear whether this situation is more or less dangerous than the debate that led to the LGPL. The implied message is clear: "GPL3.0 may not be any good."
The expression that GPL3.0 might be bad is meaningless because it doesn't exist yet. Communicating this to a mass audience is FUD. The purpose is to stir up demand for participation in the GPL3.0 drafting process, which will complicate it, and slow it down, and sacrifice the quality of the final product (even if only the timeliness). If there was real reason for concern, people would already be embroiled in an Internet wide debate on what needs to be fixed with the GPL. Maybe that is already happening, and it's just the people most qualified and or interested that are participating in the debate, at a quiet level compared to Slashdot controversy. If I wanted to derail those people, the best tool at my disposal is to try and discredit them and force them to spend their valuable time defending themselves and their work from angry mobs of mouth-breathers who refuse to Google the issue themselves.
Here's a hint: if you ever get a feeling of righteous indignation, you're playing the victim, and you're ignoring your real opportunity to do something positive.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Read over COPYING in some GPLd package, it details out how to use the GPL and that this is allowed.
A proposal that doesn't involve enforcing features.
There's already a considerable freedom in choosing between versions of the license. When the FSF could publish multiple licenses to suit different tastes (stay with 2? use 3? your choice), I don't really see the need for "democracy". It's your software; you can write any license terms you want. GEE! developers often do! amazing!
In a purely democratic society with no other guiding principles, your neighbors, customers, suppliers, etc., would vote on the price you should charge. You would then be obliged to follow that decision, regardless of whether you agree with it.
In a purely capitalist society with no other guiding principles, you would be free to decide on any price you want, assuming you could actually make snow cones, which you couldn't, because the long-established snow cone cartel has restricted the supply of snow cone makers as a barrier to entry to preserve their monopoly.
In a purely communist society with no other guiding principles, you would be assigned a snow cone maker and a production quota. Citizens would exchange food tokens for snow cones; no money would change hands.
In a purely authoritarian society with no other guiding principles, you would steal a snow cone maker and set up for business, charging ruinous prices; however, you would give snow cones for free to members of the junta, so that (a) your theft of the snow cone maker would go uninvestigated, and (b) they would hopefully choose not to shoot you today.
None of these situations are acceptable - certainly you would not describe any of these as "free." For a society to be free, there must be rule of law, and the laws must be set up in such a way as to prevent any of these extreme outcomes.
-Graham
With the keep the button to output the sourcecode requirement RMS and the FSF are trying to license the output of their application. Especially since the HTML put out by a web application is the output. In addition they're removing freedoms as to how applications are used, something the FSF have stated many time that they are against.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html/- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.htmAttempts, and suggestions to restrict the way people change and use software, expecially the prosed get source functions, violate freedom 0.
In addition the attempt to controll the output of the application, and changed application go against the GPL FAQ on Liscensing GPL output.
Whatever the FSF decides to do with GPL-3 they need to stick to these principles.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.