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

Re:Other issues

[AuMatar]

Not quite. What they want to do is make it legal to try and decypt content GPLed code protects. By stating they are not an effective protection method, they are not covered by the DMCA. Therefor, you can try and remove the encryption from any content that the program produced (possibly any content it can read?). As for legality, I'd think its fairly strong- whoever releases it under the GPL license is voluntarily agreeing to this, and thus waiving the rights to sue under the DMCA (remember, breaking the DMCA is not a criminal act, but a civil tort).