RMS on Proposed GPLv3 changes

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes "Last Saturday - the first day of FOSDEM, Richard Stallman gave what seems to have been his first public talk about the draft GPLv3. Ciaran O'Riordan of Free Software Foundation Europe was there and, after recording with his digital camera, has published a transcript of RMS's GPLv3 talk. O'Riordan previously made a transcript of the January 16th first presentation on the GPLv3 which consists of 70 minutes of Eben Moglen, with 20 minutes worth of interruptions from Stallman."

Comments

More info at gplv3.fsf.org

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

These transcripts, and other such documents, are collected at the official GPLv3 wiki, on the Reusable texts page. And there's more info about the draft and how to participate in the public consultation at gplv3.fsf.org.

Re:A request

[squiggleslash]

There's a few updates. Other than clarifications (for example, over GPLing something you have an exclusive or semi-exclusive patent license for that you can't transfer to licencees), the major changes I saw are:

1. A manufacturer who takes GPL'd code, signs it, and then sells hardware that only runs code signed with their key, which they don't redistribute, is in violation of the license. This is relatively narrowly defined, despite Torvalds throwing a hissy fit about this part of the license a few weeks ago, thinking it outlawed all forms of DRM (it doesn't.)

2. The license isn't automatically revoked upon it being breached. Instead the copyright holders have to give the breacher 30 days notice to allow them back into compliance.

3. To make it more compatable with similar licenses, there's a whole bunch of optional terms and conditions that can be added. For example, you can say "If you sue us for patent infringement, you can't use any patents our code relies upon that we own, effectively ending your ability to use our software." The notable feature is that this is an optional condition.

HTH. Anyone notice anything else that was major (ie not a clarification of something we largely knew anyway?)

Re:Bias showing

[omeg]

Nonsense. RMS's name has already been mentioned a few times in the summary, and it's thus not necessary to give his full name again. The author might also have concluded that RMS is most likely more well-known than Eben Moglen, and that he could, for that reason, leave out his full name at that point.

Seems to me like you're either very paranoid or just made a really bad joke.

Re:Bias showing

[eobanb]

Wrong. Just about every manual of style and usage says that the first time you mention someone's name in a news piece, you use their full name, and after that, their last name only (or use Mr/Mrs/Ms/Dr/etc).

Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:A request

[LordNightwalker]

We recorded all the speeches this year and the movies can be found here. Not everything is up yet, and they're still working on ogg/theora versions, and the filenames may not be too descriptive if you weren't there, but whatever... I already sent some feedback and those issues will probably be fixed soon.

Disclaimer: I was but a humble volunteer; don't spam me with any questions 'coz this is about all I know about the movies. ;)

Bill? Is that you?

[PetriBORG]

Is it just me or does it seem like RMS created a new verion of the GPL because people stopped listening to him about the old one. It seems to me that RMS views are no longer connected with where Open Source should go, and will just lead Open Source to be too socially libral for wide use. OSS socially libral? We're all a bunch of commies is that it?

The GPL3 is trying to address a great number of current problems with the GPL2 including things like use of web-scripts, patents, and other holes. It has nothing to do with th lime-light or some BS like that.

The GPL functions the only possible way it could, by forcing the source code be given away for free. That is the entire goal of the GPL and it does it wonderfully. Patents threaten the GPL because someone could in thoery give away the source code with some patent hiden in and then turn around and try and charge you for making use of that source code.