Slashdot Mirror
Linus Speaks Out On GPLv3
Slagged writes to mention the word that Linus Torvalds isn't a fan of the new GPL draft. News.com has the story, and someone purporting to be Linus is causing a ruckus in the Groklaw thread on the subject. From the News.com article: "Say I'm a hardware manufacturer. I decide I love some particular piece of open-source software, but when I sell my hardware, I want to make sure it runs only one particular version of that software, because that's what I've validated. So I make my hardware check the cryptographic signature of the binary before I run it ... The GPLv3 doesn't seem to allow that, and in fact, most of the GPLv3 changes seem to be explicitly designed exactly to not allow the above kind of use, which I don't think it has any business doing."
Linus's whole point is that the GPL 3 dictates technical details of projects that use it, where V2 didn't.
GPLv2 dictated technical details that affected the next user's right to modify the software. For example, you couldn't link a modified GPL program with a closed source library, since that would hamper the ability to modify the software.
The spirit of the GPL has not changed. The "political goal" is to ensure that all downsteam users that wind up using GPL software have the same rights to modify and distribute the software that earlier users had. That has not changed. It's only closing a loophole that some companies can use to take away those rights without violating the letter of the GPL.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Yup. GPLv3 is just plain dumb. It "addresses" a non-existent problem. People have a choice between DRM and non-DRM platforms and software. They can and do vote with their wallets.
Yes, but currently Free Software authors are subsidising the development of platforms that takes their Free code and locks it up so that it can't be modified or replaced. A lot of Free Software authors don't like this because it defeats the whole point of Free Software. That is the problem that it solves.