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Should Developers Switch to GPLv3?
Isaac IANAL asks: "Victor Loh of ExtremeTech writes about the General Public License version 3's clause, which requires releasing digital signature keys — in other words, the software should be able to retain interoperability when modified. The article raises an objection, citing Linus Torvalds, that the so-called TiVoisation clause would inhibit open-source adoption in embedded devices among entities such as governments, health care providers, and finance firms. The issue has been discussed on Slashdot many times before. If you're a developer for a platform that needs to run signed code, could you use software under the GPLv3, or does the GPLv3 (at its current, unreleased state) truly inhibit your control as a developer over your device?"
Wait for the service pack.
If you are writing from scratch you lose no control as you can dual, triple or whatever license your own code as you see fit.
If I sit down and from scratch write a kernel I can release it under the GPL v2, v3, v8 and seventeen differrent closed licenses with no problems at all other than going mad from reading all of the legal junk that's required to define each one.
It would only impact on me if I decided to use someone else's work as the basis for mine, or as part of mine, and then I would either have to comply with their license or do the work myself. Doesn't seem that hard to me.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
If you are really interested in building a community around your project, choose a license that not only lets people contribute back to you (meaning that it has to be open to them in the first place) but also allows them to leave any time without having to forfeit their work (meaning that you have a cooperative relationship, not a dom/sub relationship).
GPLv3 is the worst of the series, IMO. Where it fails is in its insistence that if you want to be part of the community that you basically have to turn over every single thing to the whole community before you get the blessing to participate. Got a patent? Sorry, bud, check that at the door. Want to run specialized programs that require secrecy of code? Not on this platform, man. Want to mingle your closed code with our open widget? Give up all your source first.
It's not inviting at all except to anyone who has more to gain than lose from such a relationship. So what you get is a bunch of people who are actually leeches creating programs that no one else outside the community can even look at for fear of contamination.
If you want to share, then share. If you want to profit off of others and view everyone that looks at your code without contribution as suspicious, choose the new GPL. (The Artistic License for example, before it became GPL-compatible, was actually very cool and was able to gain a very large and loyal following for the Perl language. People contributed out of a sense of community, not out of coercion or because they were collecting a paycheck to do it.)
I doubt it, the v3 might be ace, but I would be very conservative with my code and what licence to use, v2 seems to work well and I'd be inclinded to stay there - problems that early adopters have are not limited to hardware!
I myself have a question which is not entirely off topic, which somone might be able to answer. Can I release a document which I've written under the GPL if it is not software, say an article or something? I would want people to be able to use my work in a fair way, and after I'm dead all this sillyness gets even more mental. Or does a licence for text documents like the GPL already exist seperately? and what would your obligation be unde it, if what you write is already plain text and doesn't have a source per se
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Okay, I may be a little tipsy, and legal loopholes may not be my strong point, but what exactly is wrong with v3? As I understand it, one of its main purposes is to prevent cases like Tivo from happening again, where the source is officially released (therefore GPL-compliant), but modified builds won't work anyway (not covered in GPLv2, therefore legally correct, but still against the actual spirit of the GPL)
Isn't it expected that licenses will evolve as technmology changes, and as loopholes are exploited? If v3 isn't adopted, what's to prevent everyone from locking down their software through keys?
Please clarify if I've misunderstood something, I greatly respect RMS and really can't see what he's doing wrong here. As I see it, without v3, the GPL will just end up just being a license where people can use the community's hard work and avoid giving something back in return.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
Code needs to be used; if it isn't then what good does it do anybody?
If a company like Tivo makes changes so the kernel can support a particular situation better they have to release the code back to the community. That's the purpose of the GPL.
While there are downsides to a company like Tivo preventing any 'foreign' software from running on the system the fact is it prevents them from having to deal with thousands of variations and means they choose how and what to support. The alternative is they use something like BSD where they never have to return anything to the community.
GPLv3 will force companies to choose either GPLv2, or BSD style licensing unless they can develop the whole product in house. Obviously if they develop the whole thing in house the community at large is very unlikely to benefit at all.
So why would anyone want to decide right now if they would use the GPLv3 or not? Most projects that are licensed under the GPLv2 have the "version 2 or any later version" clause in them, so developers could, when the GPLv3 is finalized, choose to "fork" their project to that license, or keep it the same.
Discussing the good and bad points of the current GPLv3 draft is valid and we should be doing that here. But to ask the question "should developers switch to it?" is immature and a little silly at this point in time. We could say "given the current draft of the GPLv3, I would not use it for reasons x,y, and z," but that is the extent of it I think.
At this moment in time, if the GPLv3 were actually released, I would probably still use the GPL v2 until I had time to really understand the v3 license, and the things it might mean to my project. Currently I think the GPLv2 has some definite weaknesses that the v3 is trying to address. For example, if I write a nice python library or module under the terms of the GPL (is that possible? I don't know offhand what license that would require), a person can just embed python in a closed-source C program, load my GPL module and use it as an integrated part of his closed-source program. The GPLv2 addresses dynamic linking from the pov of the compiler, the linker, but it doesn't take into account these other use cases that are now common. The spirit of the GPL certain forbids what I have described, unless the GPL applies to the program as well, and maybe the language does too, but it's ambiguous and would likely require a court challenge to decide. This is the type of problem the GPLv3 is trying to solve.
I hope that most GPLv2 people's objections to the v3 license will be addressed in some way. We shall see.
Spreading it is (either by ignorance or by malice) helping bad companies, like TiVo for instance.. Please read on the following to understand WHAT the GPL v3 draft says.
The draft version of the GPLv3 says that IF AND ONLY IF the software you want to run, needs some special digital signature, then and only then must the digital signatures acompany the source code.
So, what does all this blurb mean? Is Linus so obtuse he can't read english? No. So...?
I could understand it if he said that he felt he couldn't ignore the contributions of some hardware manufacturers, but what does he say? He says that GPLv3 "sucks" because it prevents legitimate businesses like those of TiVo. That if users don't like that hardware, they can use other hardware.
As usual, untrue pragmatism. The pragmatist doesn't idealize about perfect future conditions that may or may not happen. The true pragmatist solves the problem in a practical and definitive form: preventing the harm from happening.
It depends on what you prefer.
I haven't released any projects yet (I've only been programming for a short time), but I don't intend to release them under the GPL.
Why? Because I think people should be able to link to my projects, without forcing their software to become GPL.
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
Choose the one you like.
If you are considering the GPL, choose if you want v2 or v3.
Personally I think the GPLv3 creates more problems than it solves.
For explanations of the changes in GPLv3, I highly recommend reading (or skimming) the transcripts of the GPLv3 conferences. Each transcript includes the subsequent Q&A session, and each begins with a list of links to the topics covered and the questions asked.
The freshest transcript is RMS in Bangalore in August. Here are the others:
Many also include links to audio and/or video recordings, and there's more general information about the timeline and how to participate on FSFE's GPLv3 page.
Also, if you want to help raise the quality of discussion, a useful and really easy thing to do is to pass these links on to others.
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Take a look at the latest GPLv3 draft. It's a monster. The GPLv2 was long enough.
Most developers are not lawyers. They don't want to get bogged down in legalities and other nonsense like that. They want to develop software, and release it under a license that is simple, understandable, and allows for distribution of their software as they see fit.
Let's look at the number of characters in various open source licenses. In actual usage they'll vary somewhat due to spacing differences and differing copyright strings, so I'll just use rounded, approximate values. Focus on the magnitude of the number of characters, and not so much the exact value.
The latest GPLv3 draft has approximately 27000 characters. Compare that to the BSD license at approximately 1450, and the MIT/X11 license at about 1060. The zlib/libpng license is about 850 characters. Yes, the GPLv3 is between 18 and 30 times as long as the other licenses.
It's fairly easy for most developers to comprehend the terms of the BSD, MIT and zlib/libpng licenses just by looking at the licenses themselves. They usually can completely fit onto one 80x25 termanal screen. They're short, concise, and effective. People know what they can and cannot do with the code.
Take the LGPL, GPLv2, and now the GPLv3. Most developers probably don't have the time to read them, let alone try to figure out what's permissible, and what is not. They have to often resort to some other summary or listing that tells them what can and cannot be done with code under such licenses. Even then, there's still much confusion over some of the terms, even a decade or more after the initial publication and use of such licenses.
The longer the license, the more susceptible it is to loopholes. That's why smaller, consise licenses that clearly state their terms are likely best. They reduce confusion, but most importantly, they let software developers do what they want to do most: develop software.
Developers should switch to the MIT license. Free isn't genuinely free if it's only free to some.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
GPLv2 is indeed as you describe, but GPLv3/draft goes slightly further than this, and that's what all the fuss is about. Many people have commented on the details of keys etc, but there are other issues causing trouble too, for example the change in underlying philosophy.
GPLv2 was purely a copyright license (the FSF's "copyleft" is based in copyright, and only comes into effect when issues of copyright are engaged). Everyone knew that the license could never impact on your usage of any GPL'd software, only on your distribution of it, because distribution entails copying, and anything else you may do is irrelevant.
In contrast, GPLv3 now seeks to turn the pure copyright license into a sort of EULA (End User Licensing Agreement), because the terms of the license are affected by what you as an END USER do quite separate from distributing the software.
For example, litigating against an open source developer for alleged patent infringements is a nasty thing to do, but it has nothing at all to do with COPYING or COPYright or distribution of GPL'd code. In seeking to make such separate actions of the end user relevant to the freedoms they can have under GPLv3, the new license clearly goes beyond pure copyright and into EULA territory.
The keys issue, and this change away from pure copyright worries people, and these worries may be warranted.
GPLv3 is certainly not the GPL that we love today, and we haven't even begun to understand the full ramifications of the various changes. While nobody likes where the TiVO seemed to be leading us, GPLv3 seems to be heading down a very dangerous and slippery road to thwart that, and the cure may be worse than the disease.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The GPLv3 is still in draft. Nobody can choose it yet.
The question is troll/flamebait.
Or to quote the Magic 8-Ball: "Ask again later" -- like in 6 months or so.
-- Alastair
> If you're a developer for a platform that needs to run signed code, could you use software under the GPLv3
:)
:) Me--I consider myself a pragmatist too. I've used the BSD license, GPL, Apache, and many more, not to mention semi-free and proprietary licenses. I base my decisions on what I think is appropriate for the project I'm working on. Not on what a bunch of fanatics tell me. But the GPLv3 seems perfectly in line with the GPLv2 to me. It closes a couple of obvious loopholes, and little more. When I get some code released under the GPL, I expect to be able to fix it. TiVo showed us all that that wasn't necessarily true. If it were my code they were using, I'd be pissed as hell!
Yes!
> or does the GPLv3 (at its current, unreleased state) truly inhibit your control as a developer over your device?"
No! Any more questions?
(Ok, if you want to get picky: it doesn't inhibit your control over "your" device, but it may inhibit your ability to inhibit others. You know--the people who actually OWN "your" device! But that's the whole point!)
This whole "requires releasing digital keys" nonsense has to go! Whoever invented that meme should be shot. And I don't care how many of you like his fucking kernel!
Everyone's talking like this is going to have huge effects. The fact is that there is really, so far, only one company that would have been affected, and they won't be affected because the Linux kernel devs long ago decided to stick with v2. And now the devs want to justify that decision by pointing out all the supposed flaws with v3. I'm not impressed with their reasoning.
People talk about voting machines. The solution there is easy. The software needs to provide a signature of the results AND the software together. Then you can easily detect tampering while still providing all the freedom necessary to fix problems.
Going with GPLv2-only is the WORST possible solution, as far as I can tell. That will guarantee license-incompatibility in the future. Frankly, I see nothing in the GPLv3 draft that would justify the kind of headaches that going to GPLv2-only would cause. In fact, I see nothing in the GPLv3 worth bitching about. Yes, it's new, yes, there's some controversy, but my god, I was there when the original GPL was released, and this controversy ain't nothin' compared to the shitstorm of controversy back then! Well, Stallman turned out to be basically right about the GPL in the first place, and, by comparison, I see nothing but tiny, incremental improvements this time around.
The GPLv3 will be happening, and I, and probably tens of thousands of others, will be using it. Get used to it!
By the end of the next decade, I predict that people choosing GPLv2-only licenses will be being cursed as roundly and solidly as those who chose non-dual-licensed MPL or Artistic are today.
No. If everyone agreed with RMS and found nothing that should be changed in draft 1 of GPLv3, there wouldn't be much point in having a year-long public consultation.
Criticism and suggestions are useful.
The problem is that too often there are debates under the topic of "GPLv3" which are wholely unrelated to GPLv3. People debate ideas such as "Should GPLv3 prohibit DRM", when GPLv3 doesn't prohibit DRM at all, only tivoisation. Or people debate "What if I don't own the device? What about my work computer?", but these are not being changed by GPLv3.
People don't have to agree with RMS or Moglen, but their presentations, and the text of the discussion drafts, provide a focal point to keep discussions (including criticisms) on-topic.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Governments, healthcare providers, and finance firms don't need to be able to make sure their software can be maintained? They want to be locked into a single source?
This is such a bullshit argument. Nothing about GPL3 prevents you from making your own machine tamper-proof. What they're really talking about, is distributing widgets to other people such that the other people cannot maintain or "tamper with" the widget. Governments, healthcare providers, and finance firms do not need that. Only media companies [think they] need that.
From submitter:
Before you finish that question, let's get something straight. When that platform is deployed, the end user will have the ability to install or choose what key(s) (perhaps even the end user's own key) the platform will accept, right? If so, then I really don't think you're going to have a problem with GPL3.
If the end user will not be able to sign code themselves, then fuck off. You sure as hell aren't talking about using DRM as a security feature, because users are the party who are ultimately responsible for their own security. Nobody cares if your project is GPL3 compatable or not, and nobody cares if your project uses Linux, because Linux is almost useless, like any other OS, if users cannot get maintenance whenever they want it. If your project can't get bugs fixed or features added (including features that you, the developer, think are bad ideas) then your project might as well run MS Windows. Maybe Torvalds doesn't care about users anymore, but Linux didn't get all the other developers working on it (including the ones who wrote those free drivers that you salivate over) by fucking the users over. Linux attracted people and became a successful project by not being user-hostile.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What part of the GPLv3 discussion draft 2 puts the restrictions on the end-user that you claim?
GPLv3 only puts restrictions on redistribution, not on use. (Just like v2.)
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
The "GPL is too long" argument is quite funny now.
For 15 years, people said "GPL is too long, write a 1-page version", but now that the licence is online for rewriting, and people are invited and asked to come to gplv3.fsf.org and suggest changes - where are the suggestions for what bits can be removed?
The length=bugs idea is a silly port of something that is kinda true in software but not really in legal documents. If it was true, Microsoft's EULA would be meaningless due to the number of bugs it must contain.
GPLv3 is being made easier to understand. It's not being made faster to read - reducing the byte count of the file would be a trivial goal and many more important goals would have to be sacrificed for it. It is being made clearer, and should be easier to understand - for lawyers, software developers, and judges.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
GPLv3 is one more option added, it will not erradicate GPLv2 (duh), so why all the fuss?
Well, I can tell one reason: to help developers be aware of these questions, and decide carefuly which license to use. The best one will depend on each situation. I understand Linus' concerns, he's pobrably right picking v2.
factor 966971: 966971
What part of the GPLv3 discussion draft 2 puts the restrictions on the end-user that you claim?
The patent clause does exactly that. It is unrelated to copyright.
Engaging in patent litigation is not an act of COPYing that would engage the terms of a pure COPYright license, like GPLv2 say. What the user does (separate from distribution) is no concern of copyright. Consequently, GPLv3/draft is not a pure copyright license, but some sort of odd EULA that we haven't really seen before and is hard to pigeonhole.
"either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version."
There, was that so hard?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The bottom line is that the FSF honestly never should have been involved with Linux to begin with, IMHO. Stallman never would have become more than a historical footnote if it hadn't...He has been riding Linus's coat tails, and (which is even more galling) trying to claim that it is actually the other way around.
A lot of people have criticised Linus for the amount he has said about this...in my own mind, he hasn't gone nearly far enough. IMHO he needs to publically confront Stallman, and then move the kernel to an entirely new license that he himself is the author of.
The FSF and Stallman's radicalism are one of the main things that still alienate people from Linux. There very badly needs to be a parting of ways. Let the FSF and whoever else wants it continue developing the Hurd...The degree of rapidity with which Stallman would re-submerge back into total irrelevance after such an event would in itself be a powerful testament to his true level of significance.
To any of Stallman's supporters reading this who feel an urge to attempt to reprimand me as you have done in the past, let me simply say that I believe (and will continue to believe, your protests notwithstanding) that the only genuine reason why you are ideologically supportive of him is because you find it easier and more convenient to simply co-opt someone else's philosophy rather than using your own brains. Those of us who *aren't* afraid of engaging in genuine mental effort continue to see Stallman as we have always seen him...A fraud, and an individual far less enlightened than he has been able to lead more impressionable souls to believe.
Because of all of this, Linux does not need Stallman.
It does not need his false claims of credit for things that do not belong to him.
It does not need the division and conflict that he causes. (Which alienates newcomers primarily because the very issues Stallman creates conflict about are things about which they themselves do not care about at all)
It does not need the stigma of being associated with an uncompromising, radical, neo-Bolshevik extremist.
I have tried here over a period of years to continue to write what I believe to be the truth about this man, despite the best efforts of his followers to reprimand me, to shame me, and to do the same to others like me who have dared to express their opinions. You can lecture me, you can tell me how ignorant and foolish you think I am, but I know that I will continue to be vindicated. At nearly every speech and interview he gives, Stallman continues to dig his own grave...he continues to say things which portray him ever more as a radical, and ever more as someone who is genuinely deserving of the marginalisation that must inevitably come to him.
It is time for Richard Stallman to go.
"Your" device? Once you've sold it to a customer, it's ceased to be "your" device. If a customer buys a device that runs GPLed software, they have the freedom to replace that software as they see fit. That's entire purpose of the GPL: to grant end users freedom. Complaining that the GPLv3 inhibits a developer's control over their device is like complaining that GPLv2 inhibits a developer's control over their software. Congratulations on identifying the core purpose of the GPL.
Next week on Ask Slashdot: "Can you use the Bill of Rights in your dictatorship, or does the it truly inhibit your control as a dictator over your citizens?"
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Is putting the software on an embedded device you sell use or distribution?
And what about network services (such as webpages)?
If you take the game I wrote, I think it's ok to modify it to adapt to the gaming gadget you made. You don't want to release the code for that modification because you don't want to help the eventual competition, or that glue code would reveal details of your hardware. So far, so good.
But if you start modifying the game core, I want you to contribute back. Maybe the solution to this situation is to release the source files of the game core and the back end code as different licenses? If so, which is which? It's a bit confusing...
factor 966971: 966971
Your all over the place. Basicly your just repeating the concept of a stub library. The slightly potential problems are first the acutal list of functions in a library are potentially copyrightable. You have no legitimate reason for using a broken stub library. If your talking about "optional" functionality then I would say you could do it. Second after all these RIAA and MPAA lawsuits it is likely that you could be sued for contibutory violations for facilitating users to do something in violation of a software licence.
A much better tactic would be to sue the FSF over something they did wrong and since they probably don't have much in the way capital to actually be awarded the foudation itself. A take over. You can then null and void any limitations to GPL code you don't like for everyone. A clause in the GPL gives the FSF power to relicence code however they want; and that kind of power is an asset. You could make all code public domain if you wanted or sell specific projects code to closed source companies for a profit. I'm surprised microsoft and the old unix companies havn't tried this. The question is what to sue over... but lawyers are pretty crafty.
what's wrong with v3?
- It's incomprehensible.
- It's abandoning simple copyright, and bringing in EULA-like terms.
- It reduces potential use in commercial products, and that is NOT to our benefit.
- It's far too long and abstract --- lawyers will LOVE it!
Put those 4 things together, and you have a recipe for tears for many years ahead. I sure hope that they realize that it's in really bad shape, and start from scratch on a new v3. This one is very bad.
The fourth problem worries me the most. We do *NOT* want a thousand SCO-like episodes. Not even Eben Moglen should be promoting litigation.
OB: IANAL
The second argument doesn't work, in that there *is* no such "internal use" exception. (I believe the FSF does not consider internal use to be distribution, but that doesn't give you a way out.)
The problem with any "make an ABI compatible stub" approach is that you need that stub to not be a derivative work of the library! You might be able to pull that off, but at minimum it would probably require a clean room reverse engineering approach.
One legitimate effect of this is that the GPL-linking business has no teeth for a library with a standard ABI; assuming there isn't any header produced non ABI code, you could link against such a library without your program being a derivative work. (but IANAL; I might be wrong.) As such, there's no reason (barring it, itself, being derivative of GPL) for such a library to be GPL in the first place.
What part are you talking about? The section paragraph of section 2?
e rlist-public
This is borrowed from other free software licences. From the late 90s onward, many companies wrote their own free software licences, and many included patent retaliation clauses like this. GPLv3 is copying them.
That you haven't seen this before and that you have a hard time pigeonholing GPLv3 is a reflection of you, not the licence.
If you have a comment about the licence, please make it at gplv3.fsf.org (as well as discussing it in whatever online forums you want to).
All comments submitted there are reviewed by four committees with about 130 people in total. One of those committees is made up of legal experts. They should be competent enough to review your comment. Here's the member list of that committee:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/discussion-committees/C/memb
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Your joke accidentally inspired a serious thought:
This shouldn't be named "GPLv3" when done and finalized. If they do that, there will be a big clusterfuck of confusion and uncertainty, coming from "GPL" softwares with crucially differing GPL versions -- v2 vs. v3 -- and this will harm business adoption of open-source software. Not completely clueful managers and officers get confused, they lose face, so they go elsewhere. (That is, stay with closed-source.)
"GPLv3" should be named "Stricter GPL -- SGPL" (or something like that), and "GPLv2" should be kept just "GPL" -- the familiar and famous thing that nobody has a problem with.
And anybody responding that we FSF hippies don't give a damn what the corporate world wants or needs... I understand the sentiment ("we do tools for ourselves and that's all"), but it would be good to have FOSS spread further, and in the biz domain any such ambiquity or other "perception problem" can be a bigger problem than anything related to quality or technology. Make the GPLv3 into what you want, but make it clearly separate from the current well-established GPL.
A much better tactic would be to sue the FSF over something they did wrong and since they probably don't have much in the way capital to actually be awarded the foudation itself. A take over. You can then null and void any limitations to GPL code you don't like for everyone. A clause in the GPL gives the FSF power to relicence code however they want; and that kind of power is an asset. You could make all code public domain if you wanted or sell specific projects code to closed source companies for a profit. I'm surprised microsoft and the old unix companies havn't tried this. The question is what to sue over... but lawyers are pretty crafty.
(OB IANAL)
The FSF only has control over two things: the GPL itself and code whose copyright has been granted to them. Changing the former only works if the license version used is not fixed (eg, the "or any later version" language). There are several safeguards even against a hostile later license: firstly, that the license specifically says that later changes will have the same spirit, so one might argue that a GPLv3 with a "BlueCoder gets all rights" clause would not even *be* a later version of the GPL. Alternatively, it might be enforceable by contract; that language might be interpretable as a contract between the FSF and people using the GPL license that the license will not so change. Even failing that, there'd be estoppel arguments.
Even for code with FSF assigned copyright, similar contract and estoppel arguments might apply. They might own the copyright, but the copyright was assigned with the understanding that the FSF would use it in good faith. A change in FSF leadership couldn't just sell it all off, I think. (but IANAL)
Mod parent up! My thoughts exactly... It'll be an ill day when the creators of the GPL hijack the term "GPL" for something materially different. And "GPLv3" along "GPL" (next to nobody uses "GPLv2" out there) would look just clumsy and geeky. To really succeed and spread in the real world, the GPL needs to be a very clear concept. It takes some time to wrap one's head around it already now -- any extra difficulty and complication is definitely not wanted. If what I fear happens -- v2 just replaces v3 -- I'll stop evangelising GPL just because it becomes too iffy for me to do.
Just because the GPLv3 isn't out yet doesn't mean we shouldn't consider what its impact may be, and whether or not it is suitable for use.
Like you said, there are already drafts that are available. For us software professionals who use open source software on a daily basis, we need to know about the GPLv3 and how it will effect our development efforts.
The drafts give us a good idea of the direction that is currently being taken. Many of us dislike where things are headed with respect to the GPLv3, and thus we are already taking action to avoid problems. We're using BSD-licensed software, for instance, rather than GPLv2 software. In the end, it's just us being responsible to ourselves and our customers. I know such ideas are foreign to a high school student like yourself, but in the real world we have to take the issue of GPLv3 very seriously.
But many customers expect you, as the vendor, to still service that device, even after they've fucked it up by installing some unsupported firmware hacked together by a few college students who had little clue as to what they were doing.
Now, you could always refuse to offer such service, due to their modifications. But then they'll likely turn around and badmouth your company as often as is possible, saying that you refused to fix their broken device. Of course, they probably won't mention that it was their unsupported modification that caused the breakage. People do tend to ignore facts that hurt their egos. In the end, your company will get a bad reputation, even though you make your device accessible to customer modification.
The easiest thing to do may be to prevent said situation by disallowing for user modifications of the device you produce. The GPLv2 (and possibly GPLv3) may cause problems with doing this.
If a device had one small seprate and spacific hardware function that would checksome the code and check the checksome against the key if the code was an offical relaease a small led or other indicater would come on, if not the indicator would not.
Would trying to release software under the GPL3 for the device controvine the GPL3?
The idea would be that voting machines, medical devices, and other items where the authenticity of the software is critical could indicate the authentcity of the software, while not preventing the software from running.
Would people argue that not being able to control the indicator with the users own software violated the GPL3?
>> This is borrowed from other free software licences. From the late 90s onward, many companies wrote their own free software licences, and many included patent retaliation clauses like this. GPLv3 is copying them.
...
You're not denying what I said. You're merely explaining how it is that GPLv3/draft has become like that. What I wrote stands.
GPLv3 is becoming a EULA, no longer a pure copyright license. And if EULAs are of dubious legality in shrink-wrap and click-through licenses, then they are even less safe in a license which previously relied purely on the rocklike foundation of copyright law.
>> Here's the member list of that committee:
I don't doubt their intellect. I do however question your methodology in trying to answer my point by blatantly appealing to authority. You might like to Google for "Logical fallacies" + FAQ.
A good GPLv3 will stand on its merits, not on the number of high profile people backing it.
I do however accept your point that any perceived weaknesses should be posted to the committees for review, their eminence notwithstanding. Unfortunately, I do not believe that a fundamental rewrite is possible now even if major problems are identified and recognized, because RMS and EM (both of whom I admire and support personally) are on worldwide political campaigns now.
I'm not a kernel nor Linus zealot, nor a BSD fan, (and I have no time for proprietary software whatsoever), just a long-time Unix and FSF and GNU/Linux supporter since the start. I am however a logical analyst, and this GPLv3 draft is covered in logical (and hence legal) problems.
Wine and the original Harmony project (Qt clone back in the old KDE days when the QPL wasn't open enough) banked on the idea that interface is not copyrightable. The Apple v. Microsoft case precedented the user interface; I believe it was Adobe v. someone that set the same precedent for programmatic interfaces.
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In my opinion, whether to stay with GPLv2 or move to GPLv3 boils down to the same thing as the question of whether to stay with a BSD license or move to the GPL: what things do you care about?
- Do you have a problem with a company taking your code, adding their patented methods to it, and using patent enforcement to block anybody from modifying and redistributing the patent-containing version, while they distribute it and make money off it?
- Do you care whether a hardware manufacturer takes your code, uses it in the firmware of their device, then prevents anyone else from modifying the firmware and using it in the device (think the Linksys Linux-based routers and the enhanced firmware for them)?
- Are you making a Web-delivered application, including "get the source code" functionality and want to prevent anyone from removing that functionality while still keeping your program under the GPL?
- Do you want to add any of the restrictions the GPLv3 talks about, without making your program non-GPL?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, then you probably want to look at the GPLv3 because it may suit your needs better than GPLv2. If you answered "no" to all of them, GPLv2 will probably suit you just fine.In the end it boils down to a question of what exactly you want to do with your program, and what things you want to allow or prevent. Once you know that, you look for the license that most closely matches those.
Note that this applies only to code you wrote yourself, when dealing with modifications to code somebody else wrote there's always the added constraint of what license terms they applied to their code. If they put it under GPLv3, you don't have a choice but to put your modified version under GPLv3 (or any later version, if they included that language). Similarly if they put their code under GPLv2 without the "or any later version" language.
It simply requires that you provide the user with the ability to use/create a functional key which provides identical functionality.
That way you can't end up with a situation where, say, Microsoft, uses their market clout to make hardware manufacturers release 'secure' boxes which only boot from Microsoft keys, and then they release a Linux kernel signed by Microsoft.... Now you have the source code to the Microsoft Linux kernel, but no 'comodity' box that will boot your recompiled kernel because they all require Microsoft's key.
Now, Microsoft (and Linus) can keep their private key private -- they just have to provide you with a key (any key) that will boot your box ... and They just can't punish you for using your own kernel (as long as it provides identical functionality).
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
>> The restrictions on someone who uses patents as a weapon against Free Software are ONLY to the acts of modifying and distributing it, which is completely within copyright law.
Exactly, I couldn't have expressed it more clearly myself. The acts of modifying and distributing a work are completely within copyright law, whereas the extra new provision concerns an issue that is not related to copyright law, namely litigation over alleged patent infringement.
It's this non-copyright related factor that turns GPLv3 into a EULA --- an agreement regulating what other things the end user can do, apart from the modification and distribution which are both covered by copyright law.
The FSF doesn't need to convince Linus and the other kernel developers. All they really need to do is make everything *but* the kernel GPLv3. Linux is not very useful without bash or a number of other programs.
Another trick would be to put glibc under an LGPLv3 that has the same restriction on software signing systems.
Switch lobbying efforts to trying to get Samba to use GPLv3.
The endgame of the Trusted Computing fight is that within a few years an operating system that isn't TCG-signed will not be able to fully access the Internet, with various games, web sites, and DRM systems refusing access to "untrusted" operating systems. Linux will exist, but only the large corporations will be able to build it.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
The restrictiveness of the TiVo situation is caused by the closed hardware, not the GPL software. The software is doing its job under the GPL.
The intent of the GPL (even RMS would have to admin) was to ensure freedom to tinker
- on general purpose computers
, not to patch an embedded system.The "right to tinker" may be central to FSF philosophy, but it's the least important of the GPL rights to the general public. Strange as it may seem, 99.9% of the world doesn't write code. And further, that right is still available
The TiVo software is fulfilling the primary GPL right of making dervative improvements freely available - anyone who wants to can take a cool new codec that TiVo wrote and port it into mplayer. TiVo has made a permanent contribution to the pool of freely available source code.
The closing insult is genius, thanks for the display of your intellect.
n g.html
As for your point, yes, forks happen. MIT/BSD allows for forks, and the forker can choose to make the fork unhealable (by many methods, one of which is not distributing the source). GPL also allows for forks, but it ensures that all forks can be healed - the fork and the original can be merged later because the licence can never become incompatible.
Here's an excellent essay on the topic: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forki
The superiority of the GPL approach (copyleft) can also be seen by the number of contributors to GNU/Linux compared to the number of contributors to the free BSDs. Copyleft creates a level playing field, and more agree to play.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
You got me, I took the lazy way out.
...until I get my own legal qualification :-)
The fact is that I can't say what an EULA is and what a copyright licence is. To me, GPLv3 draft 2 looks like a copyright licence. The termination in section 2 paragraph 2 seems ok to me, but I'm not competent to ok it.
One thing I feel mildly competent to say is that that sentence can fail without taking the whole licence down with it. At worst, it's a useless, unenforceable sentence.
So an appeal to authority is about all I can offer (with a link so you can judge their authority).
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Don't get me wrong, I'm an open source zealot myself, and I have huge respect for what RMS has done to put open software on the map, and having someone on the extreme acts as a foil for moderates, but the GPL is not a soapbox. Embrace pragmatism!
Wearing my business hat as CTO of a USA-based internet startup, where naturally we use a ton of open source stuff, my concern is that RMS's extremism is handing a gift to the anti-open-source community, especially to Microsoft in their battle with Linux.
I deal with venture capitalists and other financial types: their lawyers don't understand open source licensing, and lawyers always fear what they don't understand. Even now, their standard going in position in deal negotiations is "tell us about all the open source your company uses, what the licenses are, and what it would cost to replace it with closed source". The normal GPL gives a business less commercial protection than a proprietary license which, for example, typically inclues indemnification against patent lawsuits.
We do use GPL'ed stuff, but as a business person I prefer almost any other major open source license (Apache, BSD, Artistic, etc.)
If RMS has his way, there is going to be massive confusion between GPLv2 (just liveable with, if you're careful) and GPLv3 (totally unsuitable for business use) and the FUD is going to be used against every open source project out there. He's going to force me off of Linux and onto a closed OS. How does that help open source?
RMS needs to step up to his natural leadership position as elder statesman of the open source movement: this is a political role, which means embracing compromise.
He also needs to get over the Linux / HURD thing and move on
If you are writing free software, I strongly advice you to use whatever free license is the dominating one in the community where your application belong. There are good reasons to prefer some licenses over others, depending on the circumstances and goals, but in the vast majority of cases, these good reasons are dwarfed by the confusion created by going for an unusual (in the community) license.
And whatever you do, don't create your own license.
Travel expenses for GPLv3 conferences are paid from a fund contributed to by companies with instructions that they be spent on GPLv3 awareness. To the best of my knowledge, none, or very little GPLv3-related travel was paid for out of ordinary donations. The FSFs are quite a frugal bunch.
And, for this unusual project, "disemination" is not only important, it is the duty of FSF. Because of the "any later version" clause, when FSF release GPLv3 it will change the terms under which a lot of software can be distributed. How can all the authors and distributors be informed of this? (and their input solicited?)
There's no formal way, so FSF have decided to spend a year on it and travel around the world and talk to the press and publish information online and participate in online discussions. If there are any other outlets, please help by spreading the word there. The above linked transcripts are a tool to help people who want to help in that way.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Ok. You referred to some unspecified legal problems regarding GPL before that paragraph, so I assume your business decisions were based on those fears... Could you explain how any other open source license is better?
Also, you describe GPLv3 as totally unsuitable for business use, but do not back the claim in any way. At least point out which clause you think rules out using GPL v3 in a business?
Yes!
And GPLv4 should be called ESGPL; "Even Stricter GPL"
GPLv5 should subsequently be called TSGPL; "The Strictest GPL"
Obviously GPLv6 will be called TMSGPL,S; "The Most Strictest GPL, Seriously"
And GPLv7 is TMSGPL,WKYN; "The Mostest Strict GPL, We Kid You Not"
- Peder
There is no problem with deciding on GPLv2 vs. GPLv3. You are all ready developing for GPLv3. After all, it is a future revision of GPL, so there is a default licence upgrade provision in GPLv2
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
IMO, the "linking" clause of the GPL is pretty worthless, in that a stub library or an API compatibility layer can be used to get around it. And while the concept of an "ABI copyright" would defeat this, I can't see the FSF championing that idea; it would allow any proprietary software developer to forbid the development of any program which interacted with their software. Contributory infringement arguments get you nowhere; there can't be a contributory infringement without a direct infringment, and the GPL (V2) allows a user to make a derivative which he cannot legally distribute.
As for the relicensing idea, I've maintained for a while that it makes no sense for anyone but the FSF itself to include the "...or any other version" clause in their licenses. The few things I've released under the GPL have been V2 (specifically). I might re-release under "V2 or V3" in the future, but I'd not give a blank check to the FSF, precisely because of the possibility (however unlikely) of a takeover of the FSF.
The internal use exception is implicit in Paragraph 2. It permits derivative works, and does not require you to license your derivative work under the GPL unless you distribute or publish it. So if I publish a non-GPLed work which is useless without some GPL-licensed library, but not derivative of that library, users of my work are not violating the GPL by linking my work with that library, and therefore I cannot be contributing to their infringement.
GPL V3 Draft has the same loophole, by design -- it explicitly excludes from the definition of propagation "making modifications that you do not share", and also explicitly states, "This License permits you to make and run privately modified versions of the Program, or have others make and run them on your behalf.". This is a feature, not a bug, though the effect on enforceability of the GPL on dynamically-linked executables may be a bug.
Once GPLv3 is officially finished, I am going to read it and decide if I think FSF kept its word and made the new license in the same spirit as the old one. And once I have decided, I am going to release a statement on my homepage saying either, that anything I ever released under GPLv2 can be used under GPLv3 as well, or I will (highly unlikely) state that I don't consider GPLv3 to be a successor to GPLv2, and code I have released under GPLv2 cannot be used under the terms of GPLv3.
At first I'll probably allow new code I write to be used under GPLv2 and GPLv3 until I decide which one I like better (which will also depend on what other people do).
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Public domain or even LGPL is the only way to go - people just don't like the idea of others (not them) profiting from their work but really the world in which they live benefits when more than just GPL biggots can use avaliable public code.
The intent of the GPL (even RMS would have to admin) was to ensure freedom to tinker on general purpose computers, not to patch an embedded system.
The whole think started with RMS wanting to modify the FIRMWARE of a PRINTER, but being unable to do so because he didn't have the source.
Now, tell me... Which category does a printer get closest to? A general purpose computer, or an embedded system?
Since what I understand of your question is that you still allow the user to install their own programs and THEY WILL RUN, but that the hardware will notify the provider that there has been such a change that is fine.
In much the same way as kernel tainting if you use a non-GPL driver.
So having the computer rat on you and say "this isn't the software you wanted installed" is fine, as long as the code works that the user put on there.
there is an upgrade in the standard boilerplate but not in the license itsself and many big projects contain at least some V2 only code.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register