Why Torvalds is Sitting out the GPLv3 Process

lisah writes "Linus Torvalds has a lot of reasons for not wanting to participate in drafting the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPL): He doesn't like meetings, says committees don't make sense, has philosophical differences with the Free Software Foundation, and seems to be generally distrustful of the whole drafting process. Though Torvalds prefers the GPLv2, he says if others prefer the GPLv3, they ought to support it because 'it's not like it kills and eats small children for breakfast, and must never be allowed.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

Comments

Re:A simpler explanation

[a.d.trick]

LT has made it pretty clear that the spirit of the GPL v3 is not the same as the v2 to him, and that's his objection. I definitely agree with that, even though I strongly dislike the v2 as well.

How so? I'm pretty certain that the GPL stated quite sucintly that it's purpose was to make sure the source was free, available, and usable. The GPLv3 is just an attempt to close up several loopholes that exist in the current version of the license. From what I've heard from Torvalds, it seems that he's realized that Linux is really successful, and he want's to make some quick coin and sit on his laurels for the rest of his life. The problem is that Linus only owns a small part of Linux, so there's no way in hell he can close the source or anything.

Seriously, he should switch over to BSD and leave our penguins alone.

Re:The GPL3 process is not closed

[msobkow]

If a user outside the company has access to the application and it's data through whatever remote interface you choose (web, SOAP, J2EE, CORBA, et. al.) then the code is being effectively delivered to the public and the code changes are subject to the same restrictions as if you'd shipped a "product" instead of a "service."

The one good point of GPLv3 is that it expressly addresses the leeches who play word games and legalese instead of STEALING other people's work.