GPLv3 Second Discussion Draft Released

thppft! writes "The second discussion draft of the GNU General Public License version 3 was released, along with the first discussion draft of the GNU Lesser General Public License. Along with the text for the licenses , the GPLv3 website also includes an introduction by Eben Moglen along with markup changes to the rationale and the GPL itself."

Comments

Some more info

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

After my submission was rejected, I figured another submission based on this story was in the queue, so I put the below links together:

• Video and audio recordings of both days of FSFE's recent international GPLv3 conference

Four transcripts which include the post-talk Q&A sessions from presentations by Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen:

• Transcript of Richard Stallman's talk from the 3rd international GPLv3 conference, Barcelona, June 22nd 2006
• Transcript of Eben Moglens's talk from the 3rd international GPLv3 conference, Barcelona, June 22nd 2006
• Transcript of Richard Stallman's talk from the 2nd international GPLv3 conference, April 21st 2006
• Transcript of Richard Stallman's GPLv3 presentation and Q and A from Torino, Italy, March 18th 2006

And two very useful docs:

• A diff from the first draft to the second
• A diff from the version two to this second draft of v3

Re:more than diff

[foregather]

If you are looking for more that fsfeurope's plain text diff, FSF is providing a strikethrough version of this second Draft, that highlights all the changed text from Draft 1, in LaTex, Postscript, and PDF

Biggest Change

[Stalyn]

The word DRM and the phrase Digital Restrictions Mangement no longer appear in the document. Instead they define a clause called "No Denying Users' Rights through Technical Measures" which is basically the new anti-DRM clause.

Re:What Constitutes Distribution

[lordcorusa]

One of the things that was discussed regarding the GPL v3 was adding a provision that made web services considered distribution that would require eleasing [sic] the source as per the GPL...

The short story is that this definition of distribution (distribution is now called "conveying" in license language) has been rejected by the FSF and does not appear by default in this draft of GPL3.

The longer story: Some web services projects do want to include a link to allow users to download source, and they do want to limit server administrators from removing this capability. To appease this group, the FSF has added an optional license provision that forbids removal of such a feature. I repeat, this is an optional license feature that takes effect if and only if a given project explicitly activates it.

I suspect that you are right and that most web service providers will not want to use up resources with users downloading web service source. So, I suspect that the market will cause any such projects to diminish in popularity. The important thing to note is that the FSF is not forcing this notion of distribution on any project using the GPLv3.

On a related note, the GPLv3 drafts Section 7b contains a list of optional license restrictions (including the above mentioned restriction) that are permissible. All of these restrictions are things that the FSF does not believe are necessary to maintain a Free program, but that the FSF acknowledges won't seriously harm user freedom if individual projects choose to activate them. Mostly, this list is provided to improve the GPLv3's compatibility with other Free Software licenses which contain equivalent restrictions but are incompatible with GPLv2. This attempt at license compatibility with other Free Software licenses is a big improvement for the GPL.

Alan Cox on GPLv3 - one other thing I should link

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

I had to forget something. Here's a transcript of comments by Alan Cox.

Re:What Constitutes Distribution

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

So, if I used a GPLed programming language to make my website, must I offer the full source to that language? What if I use GPLed software to generate a movie, then put it on the web? Now, what if I use GPLed software to generate a random file, then put it on the web? What if that file is html? Where's the line?

Mmmmmm!!! Delicious FUD cakes! Straight from Bullshit Lane Bakeries.

The GPL has never, will never, and can never cover the generated output of any GPL'ed program. This can only occur in the mind of a poor deluded fool, such as yourself. The GPL covers only the source code, and binaries generated from the source code. Not, I repeat, not binaries generated from the binaries, or anything else they might produce.

As for a "GPL'ed programming language", I don't even know what the hell that's supposed to mean. Languages exist independantly of the programs that interpret them, in theory at least. Language symantics cannot be copyrighted anymore than mathematical relationships can.