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Linus Says No GPLv3 for the Linux Kernel
HenchmenResources writes "Late Wednesday a posting from Linus Torvalds appered on the the Linux Kernel Mailing List. In it Linus states that the Linux Kernel will remain under the GPLv2. Types Linus,"The "version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version" language in the GPL copying file is not - and has never been - part of the
actual License itself.""
Either, one entity holds the copyrights, and are free to change the license. Or, the copyright holders have agreed upon submitting their code, to allow the thing to be released as "GPL v2 or later".
Dvorak on Doomtech
The FSF does require that for its code, but Linux and a lot of other projects don't. It's not always bad, though. While it's harder to change the license, you don't have to trust whoever you're assigning the license to to not sell out.
At least with the FSF model, it's not 100% trust based; at least last time I checked they do sign a contract with the assigner saying that they'll distribute the code under a free license or the copyright reverts, or something along those lines. I can't remember the exact wording.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
I made the same decision Linus did on a project I run. I like what GPLv2 says, I don't want someone at MIT deciding, years after I wrote my code, what the terms of the license on my code are by granting additional rights or restrictions. My application happens to be one that runs on a server and presents users with a web interface. As you'll recall, there were originally thoughts that v3 would require modifications to such applications to be available.
The guy that started the topic is the same !#@&% guy that offered to relicense the linux kernel for some $50,000 not some time ago.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/20/226
http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/10/23/186
OK thats just the kernel being talked about. What about the rest of GNU/Linux?? Will it move to GPLv3?
I'm primarily concerned with gcc, glibc and the likes. X has its own license that I'm OK with. The rest of the apps are not critical and easily replaceable. gcc glibc and the kernel are damn hard to replace... they exist alone. Others have competitors.
I dont want any of GPLv3 in my system just as I dont want any of SCO code in my system. Maybe the final GPLv3 will be more palatable than it is now.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
No, my statement is true: Philosophy does not yield code. People yield code. I was replying to the statement that the Linux kernel is more popular with both individuals and companies because it is more flexible (from a copyright standpoint) than HURD. This is the same reason why *BSD is popular with some people and companies -- they're not bound to the more restrictive GPL.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
As a user, you won't care. It *only* relates to software authors. A quick and dirty summary:-
- Public domain allows people to do anything they like with your code, including making minor mods and claiming it as all their own work, or making minor mods and selling the result as closed-source code.
- BSD allows reuse of your code or a modified version of your code, in anything (including commercial software), without releasing source, so long as they credit you. In other words you can't claim it as your own work.
- LGPL allows reuse of your code as a component part of a commercial software system - hence its alternative name of "library GPL". You don't need to release the code for anything that uses this code/library. However if you make changes to the LGPL code/library then you must release the changes. Again, credits are required.
- GPL goes a step further. If you use a GPL code/library component as part of your software, then you must also release *all* your software as GPL as well, otherwise you may not use that code/library component. Again, there's the requirement for releasing code and credits.
There's many other licenses, but you get the idea.
There's two different philosophies here that drive this.
The first is the Open Source philosophy (Linus and ESR are the drivers here). This says that if everyone works together, we can build something better than closed source software. But it doesn't invalidate the existence of closed source software - it acknowledges that this only works for mass-market software, so there will always be niches where closed-source is a better choice. Basically their drive is to help people do their jobs more efficiently.
The second is the Free Software philosophy (driven by RMS and the FSF group). This says that the very *existence* of closed-source software is immoral, and anyone using closed-source software (even in niches where no free equivalent exists) is guilty of immorality (RMS says that if no free software exists to do a job, then you should refuse to do that job). Software is therefore created as a moral imperative, rather than as a means to an end of carrying out some task (such as web browsing or word processing).
Grab.
"Which is why HURD will never see the light of day in any substantial fashion. Philosophy doesn't yield code."
If you simply want to argue over the semantics of whether or not philosophy yields code or people yield code, read no further; I have nothing to say to you. The point of this post realtes to substance, not semantics. (And before you stop reading, ask yourself this: what is philosophy without people?) Your second statement is clearly a generalization you're drawing from your first, and in incorrect one, at that. As GP alluded to, the GNU in GNU/Linux is all the utilities you use on the command line, up to and including the command line itself, and is under the copyright of the FSF. I haven't done recent SLOC counts on GNU vs. Linux, but I would be surprised if they weren't at least comparable - I'd expect that GNU actually has produced substantially more source code (that is used all the time by all manner of users and developers) than the Linux kernel itself these days. Back in 2002, RedHat 7.1 was studied and though the kernel was the largest single body of source (~2.5 million lines), there are GNU programs all over that quickly outstrip the kernel in sheer volume of source: gcc alone is huge (~900k lines), but emacs (~600k lines) and glibc (~600k lines) are both quite large as well. Those are only three GNU programs, the directory of FSF software contains (as an estimate) hundreds, including the Hurd itself.
Indeed, philosophy is a manner of viewing of the world and is expressed not by some abstract theoretical paper you write, but in how you choose to live and contribute your work to others. In this sense, philosophy is very much responsible for yielding code - do you honestly think that without the philosophical buy-in of its contributors, free software would be anything today?
The GPLv3 will be fundamentally incompatible with any program using the Trusted Computing, because all the necessary keys can never be revealed. I assume that is the point
Exactly.
And Linus's point is that that makes it fundamentally incompatible with other forms of code signing too. The whole "Trusted Computing" thing is just a logical extension of current code-signing practice, you can't ban one without affecting the other.
Example: You want your OS's auto-update mechanism to validate updates against your vendors' private key ? I do. That's how I trust it. Your OS is GPL v3 ? - then your vendor has to publish the keys. Bye bye trust.