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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.'"
I think I will continue to stick with the MIT license. It has plain, easy to comprehend terms. It's concise.
I appreciate the effort the FSF is making, but things may be getting out of hand. I know of many developers who feel the same as I do. They just want to create software, without having to get bogged down with legalities. Thankfully, licenses like the BSD license and the MIT license work wonderfully well for us.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
...will hold up legally, and how much of it is just hot air and rants?
"DRM is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the GPL, which is to protect users' freedom; therefore, the GPL ensures that the software it covers will neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden." Sounds good and noble, but will it work?
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
The same reason that code is hard to read by non-programmers, or medical papers are hard to read by people without medical training. The law, like any field, needs precise language to communicate. Many words have special legal meanings that are subtly different from common speech (or not so subtle if language has diverged over time). This is necisarry for the same reason that you can't use plain english to write code - plain english leaves to much open for interpretation. When you write legal documents, you want the judge interpreting your document, should it ever go to court, to read it the way you intended it to be read. The best way to do this is to use the accepted legal terminology.
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.
The new GPL have the following:
So patent law mixed with how I use the software, and privately at that. Can I use GPLv3 software in a company (it's not private, usually)? Can I modify it, but not distribute it outside the company? If I don't do this privately, but as a "corporate" person, then it's not private, so I can do what I want (of course not). This is just in the beginning of the new license, and it goes on and on and on and on etc.
Really, why not make a license that I don't need to be a lawyer to understand?
No; this draft includes specific language handling that case: "a code need not be included in cases where use of the work normally implies the user already has it." In other words, this only covers cases where you don't have the key, such as devices which check signatures on their firmware binaries.
No, this draft doesn't limit use in any way. The restrictions are when you want to distribute copies or use the software in derivative works. I quote from the draft:
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
I didn't see any wording in the draft that addresses this issue either way; every time I thought I did, I found the same or similar wording in version 2. So, is it in there? Will it affect how we publish web applications?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
This reminds me of something similar which has been explored in depth by Karl Popper, namely the problem of how does a free society protect itself from people who would use that freedom to change the society so that its no longer free. For example how does a democracy prevent a party from getting elected which would end the democracy? I cant give you a 25c summary, because it is a complicated subject, and I cant remember all of it anyway (its been years). However, if you're interested, I highly recommend reading Popper. His stuff is easy to read, and he deserves to be more widely known.
My life is an open book ... up to a point.
Except, ya know, that the license then goes on to say
As a special exception, the Complete Corresponding Source Code need
not include a particular subunit if (a) the identical subunit is
normally included as an adjunct in the distribution of either a major
essential component (kernel, window system, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs or a compiler used to
produce the executable or an object code interpreter used to run it,
and (b) the subunit (aside from possible incidental extensions) serves
only to enable use of the work with that system component or compiler
or interpreter, or to implement a widely used or standard interface,
the implementation of which requires no patent license not already
generally available for software under this License.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Most GPLed software already gives you the option of choosing to use a later version of the GPL, so no relicensing needs to happen.
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.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
This just kind of popped into my head- but I wonder. If GPG is not considered an "effective protection devise" or whatever the legalease is- could a company who was using GPG to protect customer information or some such be sued for failing to provide "adequate" protection of customer information.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
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?
...meight be more useful: have a look.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
...about downloading and trying any GPL library because ultimately I've found too many unclear explanations on what I can and cannot do with it related to code I make money on. In some cases, I'd like to pay for the right to use it commercially but can't even figure out who to write the check to and for how much.
I wish authors releasing good libraries under GPL would also assume that is OK to make money with it too. Just spell out the terms and conditions for us commercial types too. Not all of what I do is commercial of course, some is free (as in beer) in which case GPL tends to be fine.
I hate being the kind of person who uses other people's contributions but can't contribute back all the time. I hope the new license clears some of this up for me.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln