First Draft of GPL Version 3 Released

njan writes "The first draft of version three of the GNU General Public License was released to the public this afternoon. Major improvements touted in version three include changes designed to mitigate the damage posed by new threats to free software such as software patents. One individual stated about the release: 'It is changes in law, not computer technology, that pose the principal challenges to the free software community. Chief among these changes has been the unwise and ill-considered application of patent law to software. Software patents threaten every free software project, just as they threaten proprietary software and custom software. Any program can be destroyed or crippled by a software patent belonging to someone who has no other connection to the program.'"

Comments

Other issues

[Renegade Lisp]

The slashdot summary does not quite get the proportions right. Yes, the v3 draft does refine how the GPL deals with patents, but that is only one of many issues in this draft. (I've compiled the list below from cursory reading of the new license and the rationale that accompanies it, before it was slashdotted.)

• There is a proposal in it that would discourage or disable the use of GPL software for DRM, by stating that software under the new GPL cannot constitute an "effective technological protection measure". Thus it would always be possible for other programs to get at the same data without falling under the DMCA.
• When it comes to patents, the draft is actually not very aggressive about them. There is no general patent retaliation clause as in some other licenses, because the FSF believes that disallowing an offender to use any free software would not be too much of a deterrent for some.
• Compatibility between the new GPL and other free software licenses will generally be better.
• The idea of what constitutes source code and object code is refined. This, I think, is mostly intended to deal with the case when software is used over the web, rather than downloaded and installed.

Re:Other issues

[Grab]

You're making the incorrect (but common) assumption of "effective" meaning "carrying out its job well". The actual meaning of "effective" in law is "having the effect of". It doesn't have to do its job well, it just has to do its job such that it gives a certain effect.

For example, a cheap padlock out of a Christmas cracker is not "effective" in that it does its job well, because anyone can pick it with a paperclip. But it's "effective" in that if you, say, secure your house with it, then anyone picking the lock to gain entry is automatically guilty of breaking and entering.

That's one of the ironies of the DMCA. Any DRM system doesn't have to do its job well - it's enough for the RIAA to say "this is the intention of the system" and they're covered. That's why it's such a bad law, because it gives total advantage to one group of people (media producers) without requiring any corresponding responsibilities from them.

Grab.

Re:Cut the "any later version" option

[belmolis]

The phrase "or any later version" is not part of the GPL. Rather it is part of the statement in which you specify that the GPL is the license that you are using. The FSF recommends including this phrase but it isn't required by them or by the GPL. You are perfectly free to specify a particular version of the GPL if you wish to.

Re:No more GPG encryption

[AuMatar]

YOu're misreading the legalese. When it says that any GPLed program is not an effective DRM app, it means that by hacking around content protected by a GPL application, you are not breaking the DMCA. Because the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent a protection device, but the GPLed app is not legally a protection device, as per the GPL. It doesn't mean that you can't use encryption, but that its not illegal to reverse engineer an encryption system it uses.

The ISSUES are incomprehensible

[jgardn]

I'd like to point out that in a more perfect world, we wouldn't need the GPL v3. What has happened is that the world has become tremendously more complicated since v2. The v3 helps to address some of those issues.

Let's look at some of the issues that make licensing your software more difficult to do properly.

PATENTS. Software patents have gotten out of control. At the time of v2, there was some concern about patents, but now we have had a direct attack on the GPL from the angle of patents trump copyright. What v3 does is spell out what patents mean and how companies can use patents and GPL in peace. It says that you can't distribute software under the GPL if you own a patent that doesn't allow others to distribute the same software. You have to license that patent to allow distribution by others. Isn't this what we want? This is one technical and hairy issue that most people never think about, but needs to be thought about.

DRM. The DRM issue is another viper's nest. What happens if Sony releases software under the GPL to play movies, and then try to protect the movies under DRM legislation? Think especially if Sony takes a GPL software out in the wild, and then adds their own things to it, and then to satisfy the GPL they try to distribute it under the GPL. Are they doing the right thing, even if it is legal? Of course not. If you build or work on a data interpretation program and then license it under the GPL, you can't ask people not to try to understand how your program works or write another program to deal with the same software. The v3 license is explicit about this.

BSD license folks like to pick on the GPL because it is getting so complicated. They forget that the BSD license has its own problems. The GPL is trying to solve those problems. If you don't understand what the problems with the BSD license are, you can't understand what the GPL is intended to do, nor can you be convinced to use it.

Hint about BSD's problems: MS Windows has a good portion of BSD code in the Windows kernel. They spend a great deal of time modifying and adapting the code and then turning around and selling it, without allowing people the same rights they had. I have a co-worker whose job was to work with this code. The folks who wrote the original code get NOTHING in return, except a by-line in the Windows documentation.

Imagine if I took the Linux Kernel, made it better, then turned around and started selling it for profit, without allowing people to see the changes, nor giving them an opportunity to do the same. The GPL forbids this, and it has been a perfect solution up 'til now. The FSF is trying to predict future "attack vectors" and closing them off before they can become a problem, perhaps through future legislation or actions.

Re:Relicense?

[Bogtha]

One question for OSS projects currently using GPL, will be, should they relicense?

Most GPLed software already gives you the option of choosing to use a later version of the GPL, so no relicensing needs to happen.

For example, should Linux become GPL3'd?

Linux is a special case. It's explicitly GPL version 2 only, and most of the code has been submitted with that understanding. If Linus wanted to switch to this new version, he'd have to get permission from everybody who's got code in Linux.

Read it with the Rationale Document!

[Anonymous Coward]

The FSF have provided a document explaining the rationale behind the changes in each section of the license.

Before blindly criticizing the wording of a certain section, I suggest reading the rationale behind the changes.

- Does the text in the License do what they intended it to do?
- Do you agree or disagree with what they intended?
- Are the possibly-bad side effects of the text which aren't mentioned in the rationale?

a diff between version 2 and the draft...

[NumbThumb]

...meight be more useful: have a look.

Re:I'll stick with the MIT license.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter that it's not your fault. Unless you're like MIT with a substantial legal staff to scare them off, it'll be too bad for you. The BSD license would be a much better choice.

The MIT license protects against that. See:

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT

Re:Web services?

[sparkz]

I asked Stallman about this back in 2001; his reply is here:

ME: I modify GPL code - eg a CGI library - to suit my own needs for use on a publicly-available web server. This code is being run, by the general public, on my web server. Should I, in this case, make the code available? Under the GPL, must I?

RMS: The GPL does not require it. But is not very good for the community when people do this, so I am looking at a way that GPL 3 could require publication in this case.

The conversation and background of it is all documented at http://steve-parker.org/articles/lego/

Re:I'll stick with the MIT license.

[jbolden]

And your copy may be totally irrelevent. See the history of X windows for a great example of how the MIT license totally failed.