Torvalds "Pretty Pleased" With Latest GPLv3

Novus Ordo Seclorum writes "According to CNet, Linus Torvalds is 'pretty pleased' with the current GPL v3 draft. He said, 'Unlike the earlier drafts, it at least seems to not sully the good name of the GPL any more.' After his earlier criticism, some had questioned whether such controversies would lead to rifts in the community, especially if the kernel ended up under a different license than the GNU tools. But with the latest revisions, Linus will entertain moving the kernel over to the GPL v3."

Comments

Interesting..

[xENoLocO]

...and this whole time I was losing sleep on whether linus would be pleased.

Slow news day? :)

Re:Interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah unfortunately there hasn't been any new reports on Vista or pre-built Linux PCs in the last three hours. Things are getting desperate.

Re:Interesting..

[itsdapead]

Slow news day? :)

No, vitally important news for the future of the free/open source software movement day.

The linux kernel is pretty important to (duh) most linux distributions. However, so is a load of Free Software Foundation-controlled stuff, not least the compilers, make tools, standard C libraries, and shedloads of userland utilities from the "ls" command through to EMACS... plus the GPL license itself. If the two factions fall out then it can only be bad for Linux and other FOSS.

Slighty satirized and only approximately true capsule summary of the problem:

The FSF wants - quite badly - to move to the GPLv3 to prevent "TiVOization" (using GPL code in a hardware device but with DRM-type tricks that stops users changing the code) and, more recently, to stop future Novell/Microsoft FUD campaigns.

Linus and other linux kernel contributors want - quite badly - to keep the GPLv2 because:

1. if it ain't broke, don't fix it;
2. TiVO etc. may be irksome but isn't worth the risk of "fixing" the GPLv2 (as programmers they understand this!)
3. Did we mention "If it aint broke, don't fix it"?
4. Previous drafts of the GPLv3 contained scary-sounding clauses about patents and use of encryption that, whatever their intention or precise legal meaning, would have had commercial GPL users running for the long grass.
5. Unlike FSF, "Linux" doesn't ask contributors to hand over copyright - so while FSF can change the license for the next version of gcc at the stroke of a pen, "Linux" can't change the license on the kernel without getting approval from hundreds of people, some of whom have inevitably emmigrated, died, gone to jail or, tragically, got jobs at Microsoft.
6. "Look, I was up burning the midday oil the other week because I decided to 'just fix' some code that wasn't really that broken so, take it from me, if it ain't seriously broke don't fix it!"

The pro-FSF lobby countered these concerns with:

1. Trust us, we're lawyers and academics
2. Feel free to comment on the detailed wording but we're not changing our mind about the principles
3. If you're against GPLv3 you must be for software patents and TiVOization

At which point ISTR Linus (or someone claiming to be he) said a Bad Word on Groklaw and PJ made him go and stand in the Naughty Corner until he had learned to control his potty mouth :-)

Then when the new draft of the GPLv3 appears it turns out that although the FSF have stuck to their guns they have been listening and have done some substantial re-drafting.

If Linus and the FSF are talking nicely again it can only be good news - even if Groklaw's swear box takings go down.

Re:Interesting..

[ozbird]

Slow news day? :)

Reverse psychology? "Torvalds 'Outraged' With Latest GPLv3" wouldn't be interesting.

Re:Interesting..

[squiggleslash]

That's a pretty slanted view of what happened.

The FSF's issues concerned more than just TiVo, software patents were another major issue. Fundamentally though, the main issue is that there's a lot of licensing forking going on. The GPL is broken. If it wasn't, the MPL, CDDL, and custom licenses for projects like Apache, wouldn't exist.

And the biggest problem with multiple copyleft licenses is that it undermines software freedom. If you can't mix code from one free software project in another, then how are they both "free"?

Critics of the FSF countered that this was all the GPLs fault, because, erm, it's copyleft and the others are n... well, erm, the problem is copyleft, and the GPL invented that, and nobody else wante... oh wait, well, er, RMS is a dirty smelly hippy! Yeah!

The FSF recognized there is an issue, and went forward and tried to create a set of licenses (it's important to note that both the GPL and LGPL are being modified here) that anyone who believes in free software could find common ground with.

Whereupon Torvalds threw a fit, because he'd fucked up. Seriously fucked up. Early on in Linux development, he settled on the GPLv2, but didn't like one commonly included licensing mechanism, the ability to use future versions of the GPL. By itself, that's fine, trusting a third party to always put out fair licenses is a massive mistake, but where Torvalds screwed up was in not replacing it. He just took it out. It's like seeing:

i = int_add_function(i, 1);

in some code, and deciding that it sucks, and it's hideous, and it's really going to have side effects and stuff that are unpredictable, and God knows why someone would put it in, and deciding to remove the damned line instead of replacing it with "i++;"

Essentially Torvalds replaced a clause allowing for future upgrades with nothing whatsoever, which means that it's going to be very, very, very hard indeed to ever upgrade the license of the Linux kernel, no matter how necessary.

So he made up some spurious complaints about the draft. They were nonsense. In some cases his complaints were even that it was somehow a violation of the spirit of the GPL to outlaw ways of making it illegal to modify software (such as use of the DMCA.) The FSF has had to seriously water down one important clause, and rewrite another so it's obvious even to a anti-FSF zealot that Torvalds was full of shit.

After the revision, even Linus has realized that he's going to be laughed at if he makes the same complaints, so now he's trying to look magnanimous while simultaneously dissing it. Yes, contrary to the headline, he's saying he still doesn't like it.

Meanwhile, the rest of the free software (and open source) communities look on with amazement and sadness. Looks like there's less chance than ever of us settling on common hard-copyleft and soft-copyleft licenses for software we feel should be copylefted. Instead it's more likely that GPLv3 will just add to the mess of licenses that aren't compatible with other licenses.

And if Torvalds had just said from the start, "Hey guys, great idea and everything, but just to let you know, I fucked up with the Linux kernel licensing so it's not going to happen with my project", the project itself may, instead of being compromised by the FSF jumping through hoops to satisfy one egomaniac with no great interest in the free software movement to begin with, be the universal set of licenses we wanted to begin with.

Re:Interesting..

[pkcs11]

Had you read the previous Linus article about having some bad cream cheese on his morning bagel, you would definately be concerned for His happiness.

Re:Interesting..

[raddan]

The question is, if the FSF decides to take a hard stance on this and move their entire toolchain, utilities, and apps to the GPLv3, will their developer base follow them? I personally wouldn't see a reason to, and if I had a FSF-owned project, I would most certainly fork it.

Re:Interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

He only f'd up the licensing in YOUR view. Maybe he didn't want the license to change. No added restrictions. I don't consider GPLv3 an 'upgrade'. If you do, great, license your software with it, but don't shove it down the throat of folks who choose not to use it.

Re:Interesting..

[AmigaBen]

Amazing how when you say something like this with authority and superfluousness, you almost don't smell the stench of it.

Re:Interesting..

[Ngarrang]

From what I have read about Stallman, his ego is just as maniac as Linus. Both are just trying to stand up for their ideals. It is the ability of such people compromise that makes the world a better place. Leaving the world in the hands of fanatical extremes is a Bad Thing(tm).

This all sounds moot, though. If the Linux Kernel is licensed as GPLv2 (with no additional wording), and there is provision for changing it, then Linus' opinion wasn't even needed? Or am I missing something?

Re:Interesting..

[marcosdumay]

"The pro-FSF lobby countered these concerns with:

1. Trust us, we're lawyers and academics
2. Feel free to comment on the detailed wording but we're not changing our mind about the principles
3. If you're against GPLv3 you must be for software patents and TiVOization"

Let's not forget the FSF style concern 0:

0. It IS broken.

Re:Interesting..

[Kjella]

While we're talking about slant... what would you expect Torvalds to replace it with? "Also, you sign over the right to relicense the code any way I, Linus Torvalds, feel like it". Yeah sure, that'd fly like a brick. Assuming for one moment that Linux still progressed the same, today Linus could be sitting around selling closed source kernels to Macs, Solaris, AIX, Tivo or even Windows. And thanks to the "no additional restrictions" clause there wouldn't be a damn thing anyone could do about it without ditching the entire kernel and starting from scratch. In raality, it'd probably never get off the ground.

In any case, the best argument against the parent's post about "if it's not broken, don't fix it" is that the Trusted Computing Group is busy making every PC into a Tivo. It's like sitting on the railroad tracks seeing a train coming and saying "sitting here hasn't hurt me yet". I imagine that for quite some time yet, untrusted code will keep working fine as a legacy option. But by the time Linux is being shut off from all sorts of mainstream media, it's already way too late to do anything about it. The few hold-outs will be forced to turn on TCPA/upgrade their computer and Linux will be forever shut out.

Re:Interesting..

[Serious Callers Only]

And the biggest problem with multiple copyleft licenses is that it undermines software freedom. If you can't mix code from one free software project in another, then how are they both "free"?
Critics of the FSF countered that this was all the GPLs fault, because, erm, it's copyleft and the others are n... well, erm, the problem is copyleft, and the GPL invented that, and nobody else wante... oh wait, well, er, RMS is a dirty smelly hippy! Yeah!

Are you seriously suggesting that all objections to the GPL are groundless and that all other licenses are somehow undermining 'software freedom' (What does that mean exactly?), because they aren't part of the one true way? Personally I'd release under MIT/BSD over GPL, because it is truly free of any restrictions, but still copyright the author, so it can be used by the world for any purpose as the author intended. Just because the GPL doesn't allow that doesn't mean it's not something people want to do.

A fair case could be made for the GPL being unfree in that it excludes all other licenses. Akin to monotheism's insistence that you shall not worship other gods.

Whereupon Torvalds threw a fit, because he'd fucked up. Seriously fucked up. Early on in Linux development, he settled on the GPLv2, but didn't like one commonly included licensing mechanism, the ability to use future versions of the GPL. By itself, that's fine, trusting a third party to always put out fair licenses is a massive mistake, but where Torvalds screwed up was in not replacing it. He just took it out. It's like seeing:
i = int_add_function(i, 1);
in some code, and deciding that it sucks, and it's hideous, and it's really going to have side effects and stuff that are unpredictable, and God knows why someone would put it in, and deciding to remove the damned line instead of replacing it with "i++;"

Your analogy assumes he disagreed with the implementation, but not the intent (if indeed it makes any sense at all?). In fact he disagreed with the intent, and therefore removed the clause.

As to the clause in question "or any other version" - this is a contentious clause, I'm not surprised he took it out. Why would anyone possibly agree to be bound by any and all future conditions that they haven't even seen; you may as well say "or any other license the maintainer chooses in the future". I doubt that clause is even legally binding. On a project with multiple contributors who retain copyright, you'll always have to go back to them to ask about changes - similar to a change of terms and conditions from your bank; they have to notify you in writing of changes. If anything the only mistake Linus made was not to set up a foundation and assign copyright to that - an understandable oversight when starting out, and one which they may start to slowly remedy.

Meanwhile, the rest of the free software (and open source) communities look on with amazement and sadness. Looks like there's less chance than ever of us settling on common hard-copyleft and soft-copyleft licenses for software we feel should be copylefted. Instead it's more likely that GPLv3 will just add to the mess of licenses that aren't compatible with other licenses.

Who are 'the free software community' and why do you presume to speak for them?

People will vote with their feet- if GPLv3 is truly the one pure license as you seem to believe, they'll choose it. I personally don't see any problem with a proliferation of licenses - the bad ones will be weeded out by natural selection. If you don't like using the Linux kernel and truly think the maintainer is an egomaniac, go start your own instead of gratuitously insulting the man who maintains it. Perhaps you could contribute to and use HURD instead?

Re:Interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

And the biggest problem with any copyleft licenses is that it undermines software freedom.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Interesting..

[Bogtha]

If the two factions fall out then it can only be bad for Linux and other FOSS.

Why? Linux isn't a derivative work of GNU and GNU isn't a derivative work of Linux. They can use different licenses without a problem. You can use GNU code on Windows legally. You can use proprietary software on Linux legally. The case where they are both using similar licenses (GPL2 vs GPL3) is no different.

Even if you are talking about culture and not law, there still isn't a problem. People use the LGPLed GNOME on the GPLed Linux happily. People use the GPLed GCC on the BSDs happily. So long as it remains free software, where's the problem?

Re:Interesting..

[init100]

This all sounds moot, though. If the Linux Kernel is licensed as GPLv2 (with no additional wording), and there is provision for changing it, then Linus' opinion wasn't even needed? Or am I missing something?

No, it is moot. Some people just continue to insist that Linus has to give his stamp of approval if this license is to take off. If he won't, they mean that the FSF should just throw it away and forget about it. And this despite the fact that Linus can hardly move the kernel to GPLv3 even if he wanted to.

Re:Interesting..

[rubycodez]

no screw up, he made the license absolute with the removal of the "later version" clause, and didn't foul it with any equally vague and open-ended replacement. Developers and corporations loved the existing license and made Linux the most successful open source project on the planet. Whether the new GPL3 (which doesn't exist yet at any rate) will solve problems or introduce some legally fatal bug remains to be seen. Linus doesn't have to be in any hurry to adopt it, why should he be the first guinea pig?

Re:Interesting..

[EsbenMoseHansen]

out of interest... why? From a private developer's perspective, I really don't see the difference, unless you are trying to submarine patents in OS code (unlikely)

Re:Interesting..

[10101001 10101001]

You don't seem to understand how the GPL2 "or, at your option, a later version" clause works. If Linus were to have licensed the kernel under a "GPL2 or, at your option, the yet to be created Linus Public Licenses to be created by Linus Torvalds", then the second Linus started selling copies of Linux under his LPL v1--which allows companies to not distributing source--*anyone* could fork the current code base under the GPL2 *only* and take away Linus' "dictatorship" over the kernel. Would this be a large upset to the kernel community? Of course--just as would be true if Linus decided to take all the "GPL2 or at your option, later version code" and work to form a GPL3 kernel; no matter what the license change or possibly even the *lack* of a license change will motivate forks, as forks of the Linux kernel are happening all the time.

Your position is about as silly as believing that if Microsoft bought out the Mozilla Foundation tomorrow and relicensed all the code under a closed license (assuming they could) that (a) people would continue to support and use Mozilla Firefox and ilk as if nothing had happened and (b) that no one would fork the existing code base and try to lure the disillusioned community to create a mechanism to further decrease the chances of such happening again.

Yes, there's certainly a great bit of room to argue that allowing the FSF to retain control over possible future Linux licensing is bad, but the wording of the license won't magical dissolve the current license on current code. The real beauty of free software isn't the direct effect of so much GPL source being available; it's that so much GPL source being available, and a license that exists to continue that source to be GPL, motivates people to build communities to ever further work the useful and usable into something that will evolve with the needs of developers and users; except in things like very simple appliances, unmodified code stagnates to the point of disuse.

Re:Interesting..

[Master of Transhuman]

Nice conspiracy theory about Linus.

All the words out of Linus's mouth, however, show you that you're completely wrong. While it may be true that Linux is under one license and only one license, Linus basically doesn't care because that license does what he wants. And now he's seriously considering moving to GPLv3 because the current draft is braindead in his opinion. Which pretty much annihilates your argument.

Obviously another FSF fanatic...

As far as "egomaniacs" go, nobody can beat Stallman - not even Bill Gates.

Sorry, clowns. "Linux" will REMAIN LINUX, not "GNU/Linux".

Get over it.

Re:Interesting..

[Master of Transhuman]

Correction: "current draft is braindead" should read "current draft is not entirely braindead".

Re:Interesting..

[squiggleslash]

He made the license permanent with the removal without replacement of the "later version" clause.

That's the fuck-up. He put no mechanism in at all allowing for future license bug fixes. No copyright assignments. No "or later version that meets the approval of Linus Torvalds." Absolutely nothing.

Let me repeat it again, because you and obviously many others didn't bother to read it: The fuck up is that he REMOVED rather than REPLACED the line.

Like I said, it's the same thing as removing, rather than replacing, a poorly written line of code. Linux has only succeeded so far because nobody's had to call the subroutine with the missing code in it. Well, guess what, now it's necessary.

Nobody's asking he be the "first guinea pig", they're pointing out that his blowhardiness over non-existant faults with GPLv3 have more to do with covering up the sheer stupidity of making it impossible for future license upgrades to happen.

Re:Interesting..

[Master of Transhuman]

I think parent's question is why the FSF assumes that everybody who has written a GNU utility and assigned it to the FSF necessarily agrees with the FSF on everything including the revised GPLv3.

I suspect at least a few utility developers agree with Linus that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it - and especially don't fix it in braindead ways".

Since the FSF seems to want to cripple one of the five major Linux distros (SUSE) to "punish" Novell for making a pointless and irrelevant deal with Microsoft (which is unlikely to have ANY significant effect on Linux, OSS OR "free" software now or in the future), it would be amusing if they decided to go that route - and then discovered that half their developers refused to support the FSF anymore, thus damaging the GNU utilities suite's ability to be moved to GPLv3. (I may be wrong, however, in that I think the FSF has full control over all utilities written under their banner, unlike Linux where the individual parts are not so assigned.)

In any event, the willingness to damage one of the major corporate-supported Linux distros merely to "punish" Novell clearly shows the fanaticism of the FSF and Stallman in particular.

Re:Interesting..

[itsdapead]

Why? Linux isn't a derivative work of GNU

Er, isn't it kinda derivative of the GNU standard C library? OK, that's LGPL we're talking about GPL here, but presumably the LGPLv3 will just be GPLv3 with suitable exceptions. Apart from that I've no idea whether any of the kernel is derivative of FSF "property" - the great thing about the GPL is that there's currently no just cause or impediment why it shouldn't be.

Anyway, with the possible exception of the "contacting the authors" issue, there's nothing kernel-specific about the criticisms of GPLv3.

Re:Interesting..

[Master of Transhuman]

The problem is that some companies, like Novell, made a deal that pisses off the FSF fanatics, even though there is ZERO evidence of any harm actually coming from that deal either now or in the future.

The FSF fanatics then made this draft of the GPL which was intended to "punish" Novell for doing this, and in so doing, damage one of the main Linux distros that is actually capable of being accepted by the corporate market for the desktop.

The problem for Novell was that if they continued in the Microsoft deal, they would be unable to distribute GPLv3 code - which would include most, maybe all, of the GNU utilities. This would require Novell to essentially "fork" the GNU utilities and take up maintenance of all those under the GPLv2 included with SUSE. While this would probably be doable, it would increase Novell's costs and possibly damage their ability to make a profit on Linux and possibly damage SUSE's uptake in the corporate market.

The fact that this was a stupid policy for the FSF to take seems to have become apparent to some people, so a "grandfather" clause was added that exempted all such deals prior to March 27,2007. Some FSF fanatics who only want to punish Novell complained, so now the FSF is trying to distance themselves from this clause.

In other words, the FSF is now between a rock and a hard place of their own making. They screwed up by explicitly trying to damage an OSS success - a Linux distro - and then irritated their more fanatical members by offering Novell a way out.

If they hadn't been overly concerned about the Novell deal - which, again, is irrelevant to the future of OSS and free software - they wouldn't be in this position.

In turn, the fanatics, some of whom are posting here, now try to blame Linus Torvalds for this situation because he was vociferously opposed to the previous GPLv3 drafts. They now try to claim that his omitting a "license upgrade" clause in his Linux license, supposedly preventing him from converting to GPLv3, is why he made his criticisms of GPLv3. This is a stupid argument since his arguments against the GPLv3 drafts stand on their own merits - and were supported by a state made by a number of other Linux kernel developers. Not to mention that Linus is now seriously considering the current GPLv3 as an appropriate license for Linux (although he clearly still has some reservations and wants to think about it more.)

I happen to agree with you - it's all bullshit as long as it's open source. The problem is that, as usual, it is the FACTIONS that want to damage each other that are causing trouble. Here it seems clear that the FSF wants to damage OSS more than OSS "wants" to damage "free" software. I suspect that most OSS developers are perfectly happy with the free software licenses existing, whereas most FSF fanatics seem to want to eliminate OSS licenses and force everyone to use an FSF license. You can see this attitude in Stallman's and other's attacks on Linux for not being called "GNU/Linux".

Stallman doesn't want "freedom" - he wants control of what anybody CALLS "freedom". If it isn't HIS way, it's the highway. And if he has to damage Linux to do it, he will.

That's the problem.

Re:Interesting..

[TuringTest]

People will vote with their feet- if GPLv3 is truly the one pure license as you seem to believe, they'll choose it. I personally don't see any problem with a proliferation of licenses - the bad ones will be weeded out by natural selection.

The problem is, free software advantage is not in natural selection - you have regular commercial market forces using that mechanism to the same effect.

Free software works best by cross-polinization i.e. taking the best from each available project. But different, incompatible licenses hinder that, so the (only?) advantage of the free software community is lost.

Re:Interesting..

[Bogtha]

Er, isn't it kinda derivative of the GNU standard C library?

No, it doesn't use glibc. Think about it — when the kernel boots up, it hasn't even mounted the root partition, how is it supposed to link in any libraries? And it's certainly not going to statically link glibc, it's far too big for that.

Re:Interesting..

[doti]

Both are just trying to stand up for their ideals. Stallman is standing up for his ideals. Linus has no ideals whatsoever, he just want things to work, and doesn't give a rat ass about the so called ideals.

In other words, Stallman is a visionary. Linus is just a great engineer.

Re:Interesting..

[psykocrime]

I don't consider GPLv3 an 'upgrade'. If you do, great, license your software with it, but don't shove it down the throat of folks who choose not to use it.

I haven't had a chance to read this latest draft yet, but based on the earlier drafts I would agree. And considering the overall direction they seem to be trying to take the GPL in, I doubt I would ever pick GPL v3 for a project, personally. But then again, my favorite license - the one I consider nearly perfect - is the LGPL.

Re:Interesting..

[psykocrime]

Let me repeat it again, because you and obviously many others didn't bother to read it: The fuck up is that he REMOVED rather than REPLACED the line.

That begs the question of whether or not there will ever be any actual need to relicense the Linux kernel. It's not a fuck-up
if that assumption (that Linux will ever need re-licensing) is false.

Re:Interesting..

[sumdumass]

I wouldn't use it is Linus didn't agree. And it isn't because I base my every move off what Linus thinks either. Copyright ownership or not, Linux was his baby from the start. If someone wants to use a new license that he doesn't like then somehow attempts to wrangle control from him so that it could be used, then that license and the people behind it would be no better then the evil giants we are trying not to be subject to.

Now even with the evil company steeling things against your wishes out of the way, If the reasons he didn't like it were valid complaints over the wording or effect, then it would be reasonable for others to have the same complaints. I don't think any of his complaints were based around the intended goals of the GPLv3 but the way they were implemented. Linus isn't an idiot. It doesn't take long to see if what he says is true or not. And ignoring some of his concerns because you think low of him will only validate those concerns once they are exploited. So this is a good thing. A very good thing indeed.

Linus had some good objections and had to spell out why v3 code as the license stood couldn't go into GPLv2 software. If the license is written correctly, it could because the GPL says the future versions of the license needed to be in the same spirit of the GPL.

Now, I have read the new draft and quite frankly, they did put to rest most of my complaints. I had a few more that Linus did. They were listening to people because others and I were seeing and throwing some real tough what-if scenarios out that could either negate most of what they wanted to do, leave them open for lawsuits or systematically default major distro's abilities to use GPLv3 software by simple dirty tricks. I do like the wording in it. I do like the changes, I have a few reservations that are more or less parts I don't fully understand at the moment and no of this is based off of Linus's approval.

But as it goes, if the concerns Linus had weren't addressed, then it would caused problems like forks and such. It would cause problems with user bases and it would have caused problems els were like in the courts. The last draft was a bad attempt at a good idea. This is why the GPLv2 stood for so long. It was a good attempt at a good idea. There is no reason the GPLv3 shouldn't be the same.

Re:Interesting..

[quantaman]

Whereupon Torvalds threw a fit, because he'd fucked up. Seriously fucked up. Early on in Linux development, he settled on the GPLv2, but didn't like one commonly included licensing mechanism, the ability to use future versions of the GPL. By itself, that's fine, trusting a third party to always put out fair licenses is a massive mistake, but where Torvalds screwed up was in not replacing it. So you're sure that in 10-20 years rms will still be at the helm of the FSF? If he isn't who replaces him, who decides who replaces him? Which way does the FSF go, does someone like Sun find a way to get a controlling interest then go in a different way then you want to go?

Ok maybe the other mechanism you suggested. Maybe a vote by committers, what if some company gets a big portion of the committers then try to push their own agenda? Ok, an organisation built around the kernel. Who decides who runs that organization?

Really at the end of the day the GPLv2 is a pretty good license. If a situation comes up where they feel they have to switch to GPLv3 then they can start going through the committers logs and start getting permission, a lot of the code is copyrighted by companies like Red Hat, IBM, Novell, etc, you get them on board and a lot of the work is already done, most of the individual committers are probably still reachable as well and almost all of them will agree. Now some of the stuff they won't get permission for, and they'll have to re-write that, it sucks but other projects have done the same thing and while it will be a bump in the road it certainly won't kill kernel development.

Re:Interesting..

[squiggleslash]

So you're sure that in 10-20 years rms will still be at the helm of the FSF? If he isn't who replaces him, who decides who replaces him? Which way does the FSF go, does someone like Sun find a way to get a controlling interest then go in a different way then you want to go?

No, I'm not. Which is why I wrote "By itself, that's fine, trusting a third party to always put out fair licenses is a massive mistake, but where Torvalds screwed up was in not replacing (the mechanism allowing the ability to use future versions of the GPL.)"

Ok maybe the other mechanism you suggested. Maybe a vote by committers, what if some company gets a big portion of the committers then try to push their own agenda? Ok, an organisation built around the kernel. Who decides who runs that organization?

You can create checks and balances that will reduce the chances of a serious problem to close to zero. Whereas the likelihood that the license you're using from 1991 being still relevent in 2007 is, to put it mildly, close to zero.

The simplest is to require a license be both a newer version of the GPL, and be blessed by Linus Torvalds. That's also being proposed by the FSF as a way forward for people with these problems.

Really at the end of the day the GPLv2 is a pretty good license

It's a problematic license for the reasons I described in the GP. If it was that good, we wouldn't have dozens of conflicting copyleft licenses, and wouldn't be seeing both theoretical (DMCA) and real (TiVo) hacks against it.

At this stage, the difficulty of getting enough of the contributors to ensure a smooth transition to GPLv3 seems difficult to surmount. Code exists in Linux today that's derived code of people who contributed 15 years ago, and I suspect a fair number are uncontactable. At this stage, those who believe it can be done say that it's ok, we can always rewrite the 10-25% we're unable to find and get consent from the authors of, but can we? How identifiable is this code?

Might it not be easier to "steal" FreeBSD's kernel and relicense it as GPLv3, than go through the expense and hassle of trying to convert Linux?

Re:Interesting..

[Concern]

I think you're much closer to the truth here than most, and I appreciate you whacking in a good rebuttal.

You're right about the main point - that Linus can't relicense the kernel. He doesn't control the copyrights - he never had committers assign rights to him. You're certainly right that his complaints about the GPLv3 draft were both over the top absurd and inflammatory - and most of all gratuitous, for the foregoing reason. He couldn't relicense if he wanted to. His rant about the draft was therefore was not only either astoundingly ignorant or mendacious, but just simply caddish behavior of a (heretofore) unbelievable degree.

He's also in no position to make threats anyway. Even if it was his choice, he can't release a Linux distro without the FSF's code. That's the whole toolchain just for a start. And they have assigned copyrights. They will be GPLv3. They are in the driver's seat on this one.

I think, though, that the "can use a later version of the GPLv3" clause is not quite what you might think. Can being the operative word. That would mean that you have the option to use the later version. It's not the same as giving the FSF a blanket right to revise the license whenever they like.

If I'm right, and the later version denies you rights you had under the original version of the license, then you just use the original (you decline the option). So Linus removing such an option would be much more of a minor thing.

I haven't fully digested the latest draft; what's the damage? Do you really think they nerfed it to the point where it won't be worth it anymore? How so?

Re:Interesting..

[EsbenMoseHansen]

In any event, the willingness to damage one of the major corporate-supported Linux distros [SUSE] merely to "punish" Novell clearly shows the fanaticism of the FSF and Stallman in particular.

Last I read it, the FSF are asking the community whether that clause will apply to deals entered into before a specific date or not. That doesn't sound fanatic to me, and it's a good question whether letting that clause apply to everyone or everyone from this day on is the best thing to do in the long run. I'm undecided myself.

Besides, when SuSE entered that deal, they knew very well that GPLv3 would get them into trouble, so my sympathy is limited.

So, the answer to my question is... that the reason to fork GPLv3-to-be project is merely a dislike of FSF? Not the license? Seems... very unpragmatic to me.

Re:Interesting..

[Concern]

Just stepping in here... I think I can answer for him. I'll be brief.

Are you seriously suggesting that all objections to the GPL are groundless and that all other licenses are somehow undermining 'software freedom' (What does that mean exactly?), because they aren't part of the one true way?

No.

A fair case could be made for the GPL being unfree in that it excludes all other licenses. Akin to monotheism's insistence that you shall not worship other gods.

No.

Why would anyone possibly agree to be bound by any and all future conditions that they haven't even seen

Why would people do FOSS at all? Who knows? Not that anyone who used GPLv2 really did - I think there was a misunderstanding here, though not a critical one to the point.

I doubt that clause is even legally binding.

No reason why not. Such language would be as ordinary as boilerplate assigning all rights to the FSF, which folks do without much fanfare. Let them collect donations, hire lawyers, and deal with the paperwork ... these new drafts, a perfect example.

Who are 'the free software community' and why do you presume to speak for them?

Why do his opinions about the community involve presumption? How many communities are precisely defined, and why quibble about it?

I personally don't see any problem with a proliferation of licenses

Hang around a while.

Re:Interesting..

[raddan]

Having volunteered many hours of my time to the FSF, I can say that I'm no stranger to them, and I think GNU has contributed immensely to the goal of software freedom. I think that making Free Software a "movement" was a good idea, and it attracted many people, like myself, who think that we should remove artifical barriers to computation. However, I feel that with the GPLv3, the FSF has strayed from their goal. Let's face it, the GPLv3 puts more restrictions on what you can do with software, not fewer. I am of the opinion that once a piece of software is written, it shouldn't have to be rewritten except to improve or adapt it. GPLv3 forces certain people to rewrite because they aren't ideologically aligned with the FSF.

When I write a piece of software, I want it to be free. That's why I don't use the GPL anymore, and that's why I won't be using the GPLv3 in the future. Presently, I use the ISC license and the WTFPL.

Re:Interesting..

[itsdapead]

No, it doesn't use glibc. Think about it -- when the kernel boots up, it hasn't even mounted the root partition, how is it supposed to link in any libraries? And it's certainly not going to statically link glibc, it's far too big for that.

True, but try:
cd /usr/src/linux
grep -ri "copyright .* free software foundation" .

...and you'll find bits saying things like "hand optimized from GNU libc". Admittedly its only a "mountain of code" if you use SCO units (in which a real mountain must be the size of Jupiter), but its there.

Re:Interesting..

[GrievousMistake]

Yes, my god, there's all this BSD and MIT licensed source floating around, and it can't be used for anything because of their evil, restricting licences.
Seriously, the GPL is likely to be the most incompatible of your licences, unless you're doing something stupid like using Microsoft code. It practically only goes with licences that allow themselves to be overridden. Now that may be what you desire, but don't go around blaming other licenses when the GPL restrictions cause incompabilities.

Re:Interesting..

[felineSushi]

And RMS is too a dirty, smelly hippie. Mother=hampster, Father=smells of Elderberries...

And off to the "Naughty" corner with you until you can clean up your potty-mouth!

Re:Interesting..

[sumdumass]

People will vote with their feet- if GPLv3 is truly the one pure license as you seem to believe, they'll choose it.

If this were only true. Many people are going to be forced by necessity to use the GPLv3 because of everything that is going to be switched by default. I think if givin the real opportunity chose of a dual license with development going to the GPv2 license so changes could go to either, less people would choose the v3. I think the voting with their feet is more like pushed or corralled like cattle.

Re:Interesting..

[init100]

I wondered when you would show up.

If someone wants to use a new license that he doesn't like then somehow attempts to wrangle control from him so that it could be used

We've been though this before. I don't agree that GPLv3 userspace software running on top of a GPLv2 kernel will "wrangle control from him" or "add restrictions to the kernel".

I don't think any of his complaints were based around the intended goals of the GPLv3 but the way they were implemented.

On the contrary, I think it is pretty clear that he opposed the DRM part from the start, and that this microscopic softening w.r.t. GPLv3 is in part caused by a watering-down of that section. Preventing DRM to restrict the freedom of GPL-covered software was one of the primary goals, so I think it is quite wrong to claim that he only opposed the implementation.

Linus isn't an idiot.

I never said he was. He is a very fine engineer, but that does not make him a deity when it comes to legal matters.

Linus had some good objections and had to spell out why v3 code as the license stood couldn't go into GPLv2 software.

I don't think that GPLv3 code going into GPLv2 software is a high priority with the FSF. The important part is that GPLv2 code can go into GPLv3 software (except for code licensed as "GPLv2 only").

If the license is written correctly,

The word correctly is subjective in this context. What is the correct way to write the license to achieve one goal may be incorrect to achieve another goal.

it could because the GPL says the future versions of the license needed to be in the same spirit of the GPL.

I cannot see how GPLv3 code can go into GPLv2 code with anything else than effectively forcing the GPLv3 to become the GPLv2, and thus making it redundant. GPLv3 code will naturally close certain loopholes in the GPLv2, which will make it impossible for GPLv3 code to go into software where those license loopholes are still present.

Re:Interesting..

[TuringTest]

I was not referring to BSD and MIT, but more to licenses like the XFree86 1.1 License, the Apache License, the CDDL, the Eclipse Public License... all of which can't be mixed with code under the more mainstream GPL license.

GPL is the original one including the idea of copyleft as a mean to protect the freedom of whole software projects - not just specific instances or releases. But its design didn't foresaw the needs of third parties to include particular modifications, even if they abide to the terms of copyleft - this is something that GPLv3 is intended to enhance.

MIT and BSD licenses have problems of their own, namely that they allow anyone to add into their forks additional restrictive clauses that make them incompatible with anything else - even with free redistribution at all.

Re:Interesting..

[sumdumass]

Last I read it, the FSF are asking the community whether that clause will apply to deals entered into before a specific date or not. That doesn't sound fanatic to me, and it's a good question whether letting that clause apply to everyone or everyone from this day on is the best thing to do in the long run. I'm undecided myself.

It doesn't matter. Any deal before the license is adopted or something is switched to it will not be enforced unless it is still in effect when these changes happen.

The only way the FSF can effect Novell's current deal is to either release a final license and make changes while it is in effect or change the wording to if you ever made a deal like this. The license can't be retroactive and exclusionary at the same time. If they attempt to go back on Novell, then it would likely be thrown out completely after a lengthy court case. I'm wondering if they have the funds to toss around carelessly like this. If they just ban any deals like that in it's entirety, then they will alienate many companies they are trying to get support from. It isn't a good idea.

Now, the restriction as currently stated in the license doesn't do anything to Novell. Err they could get away from their effect by simply refusing to pass the promise not to suit to their customers. MS could make the claim that they won't suit Novells customers all day long but If Novell doesn't pass this claim down, then the clause doesn't kick in regardless of the deals they made. Novell still has non GPLed products that can be distributed with GPLed products that could accept the deals and the GPL not kick in. Also, Because they used the language pertaining to a covered work, then and deals like this in GPLv2 or any other license wouldn't trigger it.

Re:Interesting..

[try_anything]

the Trusted Computing Group is busy making every PC into a Tivo

Aha! Thank you for making this connection for me. I was having trouble giving a damn about this whole issue, but now I see it makes a huge difference not just for consumer electronics but for the PC hardware I'm going to (be forced to) buy in the next five years. Companies that make hardware impossible to use from open software should not be allowed to leech off GPL'ed code to do so.

Re:Interesting..

[maop]

If the GP comment was slanted then your comment is a jagged edge. You say that the purpose of Linus's disagreement on GPLv3 is to hide his "fucked up" of not surrendering all his rights to the whim of the FSF. An argument based on slander is not going to convince anyone.

Re:Interesting..

[dbIII]

There are very good reasons for developers to release things under a licence that exists when they release that they have actually read and not have the conditions all changed later by an outside party that is going to have different views somewhere at some point. I consider a "we can change the rules later without recourse to the copyright owner" clause rather stupid - and I find the FSF approach to get around this they have been using for some time to grant copyright to them somewhat offensive. The work should never be taken away from the author no matter how good the intensions of the other group is.

The collatoral damage clause put in there to hurt a lot of commercial developers in an attempt to hurt Tivio has gone - that is a very good thing. Hopefully those zealots who did not realise that this is a draft will be quiet for a while until the other problems if any are sorted out - the "RMS is an infallible hero to follow blindly" newbies really are not helping. Nobody should declare thay are moving to GPLv3 until we actually have it and similarly nobody should be flamed for saying they won't move to it yet - it isn't finishes yet! This of course has made the entire thing an emotive storm in a teacup due to some idiot declaring that everyone must move to it even though it is not finished and some US centric stuff better dealt with in another way trying to creep in.

Re:Interesting..

[NickFortune]

Really at the end of the day the GPLv2 is a pretty good license

It's a problematic license for the reasons I described in the GP. If it was that good, we wouldn't have dozens of conflicting copyleft licenses ...

Which works if we assume that they are all trying to achieve the same goals, but I don't think that is the case. Some of them want to further restrict the licensee's rights or impose additional obligations. Some of them, such as the BSD licence, find GPLv2 overly restrictive. Some of them almost certainly exist for no other reason than that some company's legal department refused to release a package unless they wrote the licence in-house. Some licences probably only exist because someone thought "licence writing looks fun - I want a go". Hackers are like that.

... and wouldn't be seeing both theoretical (DMCA) and real (TiVo) hacks against it.

Well, it's a bit early for a proven exploit, but there's already a theoretical hack against GPLv3. Let's say you sell GPLv3 software. Suppose I then claim to have a patent which your product infringes, and announce that I will not sue your customers, although I make no such promise with respect to downstream recipients. Hey presto: denial of service. How can that be distinguished from deliberate collusion such as the MS/Novell deal?

So I guess that v2 and v3 will have different vulnerabilities; but until we get v3 out in the wild and it sees some user testing, it's way to early to say of the licence is going to be more secure (to maintain your analogy) than v2

Re:Interesting..

[renegadesx]

I for one like this draft, and it has put the damper on a lot of critics. Mind you some critics won't be satisfied until it reads like the BSD license which kind of defys the point of the GPL anyways.

Re:Interesting..

[Nocterro]

It's okay, apparently the insightful tone of the post carries it off :)

Re:Interesting..

[Master of Transhuman]

My point was that the FSF is asking the community about the grandfather precisely BECAUSE they will be in trouble if they get a reputation for damaging a successful Linux distro just to push their political agenda.

They got into trouble because of their fanaticism. They can only get out of trouble by reducing that fanaticism. The grandfather clause gives them a way out - BUT now they have to deal with their fanatics who don't WANT them to do that. The fanatics want the FSF to "punish" Novell. So now the FSF is between a rock and a hard place of their own making - either get a rep for BEING fanatics by "punishing" Novell by removing the grandfather clause OR piss off their more fanatical followers by not doing so.

As for whether Novell knew that the GPLv3 would contain clauses prohibiting their specific deal, I don't know that is correct. I'm not familiar enough with the timeline of the GPLv3 drafts and community awareness to answer that. I suspect not, since a draft is a draft and not a final. Novell apparently wanted to do this deal in the time frame it occurred in, so waiting on a controversial new GPL probably wasn't in the cards for obvious business reasons.

Re:Interesting..

[EsbenMoseHansen]

It's said that thief thinks everyone steals. I have a very hard time being convinced by someone who calls his opposition "fanatic". After reading the GPLv3, it seems quite reasonable to me; certainly not fanatic. But all the responses seems to be about grudges towards FSF rather than any real problem with the GPLv3 vs. the GPLv2. Congratulations for helping FSF convincing me that GPLv3 is a good license.

Re:Interesting..

[CTachyon]

The problem is that some companies, like Novell, made a deal that pisses off the FSF fanatics, even though there is ZERO evidence of any harm actually coming from that deal either now or in the future.

The only reason the patent covenant could possibly exist is that Microsoft has plans to sue Linux users (or contributors, or distributions) in the future. Considering that in all likelihood they funded SCO's rampaging meltdown, they don't seem to have any moral qualms with the idea. Worse yet, unlike SCO's copyright claims, Microsoft might actually get somewhere with patent claims, because writing a clean-room implementation doesn't shield you from patent law.

Frankly, Novell's management made a huge mistake in not realizing any of this when they signed the deal. If they have any brains, they'll realize that trying to negotiate with Microsoft to change the terms of the deal would be far easier than maintaining GPLv2 forks. (After all, the patent covenant granted by Microsoft is supposedly a value provided to Novell. If Microsoft refused to take back this thing of supposed value, they'd expose themselves for what they are: would-be saboteurs trying to force a poison-pill down the Linux community's throat.)

Re:Interesting..

[iamacat]

And the biggest problem with multiple copyleft licenses is that it undermines software freedom

Well, if you believe FSF should have freedom to impose GPL on others, other authors surely shouldn't be criticized for choosing whatever license best suites their tastes. I happen to believe that copyright should last for very limited time - say 7 years as envisioned by founders - and then everyone should be free to create derivative works. This way we don't have to be permanently restricted by either RMS or Microsoft.

Re:Interesting..

[giorgiofr]

You might want to reduce your daily koolaid intake and take a closer look at PP's points. He's right, you're wrong.

Re:Interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, you promote a clearly wrong, biased, version of history, complaining a comment critical about it is "wrong", are unable to make your case (you don't even try) and post anyway, knowing you're unable to make your case, and just end up resorting to insults in order to post anything at all.

You were homeschooled, right?

If you take a look at actually what happened, the GP is right, and GGP is both massively misleading in terms of what the FSF did and why its done it, and glosses over the central issue as to why the very existence of GPLv3 is a threat to Torvalds's credibility.

Face it. The man fucked up. Strike #1. He doesn't publicly acknowledge any fuck-up occurred. Strike #2. He attempts to deliberately mislead, to the point even Linus fans like Pamela Jones and Bruce Perens are having to work overtime to correct Linus's FUD, about the meaning and spirit of GPLv3. Strike #3. Why are you pretending the thinly-veiled apologia for Linus's campaign has any merit whatsoever?

Re:Interesting..

[mhall119]

You don't seem to understand how the GPL2 "or, at your option, a later version" clause works. If Linus were to have licensed the kernel under a "GPL2 or, at your option, the yet to be created Linus Public Licenses to be created by Linus Torvalds", then the second Linus started selling copies of Linux under his LPL v1--which allows companies to not distributing source--*anyone* could fork the current code base under the GPL2 *only* and take away Linus' "dictatorship" over the kernel. Would this be a large upset to the kernel community? Of course--just as would be true if Linus decided to take all the "GPL2 or at your option, later version code" and work to form a GPL3 kernel; no matter what the license change or possibly even the *lack* of a license change will motivate forks, as forks of the Linux kernel are happening all the time.

Here is why Linus stripped the "or, at your option, a later version". What if the FSF decided that the GPLv3 would be BSD-style? Then Microsoft could take the Linux kernel, "innovate" it, and sell it as the closed source NT10 Kernel, then decided to sue people for adding the same "innovations" to the open source version because they violate MS intellectual property. Linus didn't want his OS to go the way of Mach/BSD. As it happens, the FSF is moving the license in the opposite direction, but Linus had no way of knowing what "a later version" would come to mean.

Re:Interesting..

[Serious Callers Only]

MIT and BSD licenses have problems of their own, namely that they allow anyone to add into their forks additional restrictive clauses that make them incompatible with anything else - even with free redistribution at all.

This is only a problem if you don't want people to do that. Many people are happy for their work to be used for *any* purpose, and that's why they choose BSD/MIT. This isn't some unforeseen problem, it's a positive decision. It's only a problem for those who believe that all software must remain free forever.

Re:Interesting..

[Serious Callers Only]

No.No.

Thanks for your oh-so-enlightening answers.

Why would anyone possibly agree to be bound by any and all future conditions?

Why would people do FOSS at all? Who knows?

Yet again you studiously avoid answering the question in a meaningful way. Care to explain the misunderstanding you feel took place?

Why do his opinions about the community involve presumption?

He didn't speak *about* the community, he spoke for it when he said we. That is presumption. It's a nebulous term used to try to include people who are not at all aligned with the GPL inside the 'free software' church. There is no consensus of opinion on many of these issues, and as such I think it's a misleading and weasely term. Not every license in the same, and nor should they be, as they reflect differences of opinion on the best way to release copyrighted works.

Re:Interesting..

[Concern]

Thanks for your oh-so-enlightening answers.

Anytime.

Care to explain the misunderstanding you feel took place?

Sure.

He didn't speak *about* the community, he spoke for it when he said we. That is presumption.

That's your presumption.

Re:Interesting..

[quantaman]

So you're sure that in 10-20 years rms will still be at the helm of the FSF? If he isn't who replaces him, who decides who replaces him? Which way does the FSF go, does someone like Sun find a way to get a controlling interest then go in a different way then you want to go?

No, I'm not. Which is why I wrote "By itself, that's fine, trusting a third party to always put out fair licenses is a massive mistake, but where Torvalds screwed up was in not replacing (the mechanism allowing the ability to use future versions of the GPL.)"

Ok maybe the other mechanism you suggested. Maybe a vote by committers, what if some company gets a big portion of the committers then try to push their own agenda? Ok, an organisation built around the kernel. Who decides who runs that organization?

You can create checks and balances that will reduce the chances of a serious problem to close to zero. Whereas the likelihood that the license you're using from 1991 being still relevent in 2007 is, to put it mildly, close to zero.

The simplest is to require a license be both a newer version of the GPL, and be blessed by Linus Torvalds. That's also being proposed by the FSF as a way forward for people with these problems.

Really I think that's more of a political gesture (or a specific shot at Linus) than anything. Linus can be hit by a bus, decide he wants to work on other stuff, or simply have his branch of the kernel lose significance (maybe Red Hat, IBM, and others decide they want their own branch that's run a different way). The fundamental problem is that any time you provide a way for your license to be changed you're taking a big risk because the one thing you can be sure of is it won't be the same license you agreed to. It's really hard to design checks and balances around that.

At this stage, the difficulty of getting enough of the contributors to ensure a smooth transition to GPLv3 seems difficult to surmount. Code exists in Linux today that's derived code of people who contributed 15 years ago, and I suspect a fair number are uncontactable. At this stage, those who believe it can be done say that it's ok, we can always rewrite the 10-25% we're unable to find and get consent from the authors of, but can we? How identifiable is this code?

Might it not be easier to "steal" FreeBSD's kernel and relicense it as GPLv3, than go through the expense and hassle of trying to convert Linux?

I'm not arguing that a change won't be a big pain, those numbers are a little higher than I'd expect but I'm not a kernel contributor so I can't really comment on it. But I think it's feasible to start up a branch where a few people just start re-writing that code (keeping the API) while the rest of the kernel keeps coding on. It might take a couple years but at the end they should have a close to drop in replacement for the old code without a huge cost.

I should note that I think that the Kernel should have included the update clause in their version of the license, but I disagree with you in that I believe that their reasons for not including it were sound.

Re:Interesting..

[Master of Transhuman]

You repeatedly miss the point. The GPLv3 current draft is not itself "fanatic" - at least not in Linus Torvalds opinion. He's not convinced yet that it's entirely valid, but he's considering it. The previous drafts were not acceptable to him and to a number of the kernel maintainers.

To ignore those previous drafts in commenting on FSF fanaticism is disingenuous.

The people BEHIND it - like Stallman - ARE fanatics consumed with the notion of destroying "open source" in favor of their "free" ideology.

I have no objections to "free" as in freedom OR free beer. But I don't believe in pursuing that goal to the detriment of open source - which can only benefit Microsoft.

Stallman, Perens and others seem to. That makes them fanatics. It's that simple.

Re:Interesting..

[Master of Transhuman]

Oh, please.

Microsoft is going to sue twenty-five million people for using Linux? Gimme a break.

Or maybe you think they'll sue some major corporation to scare all corporations away from using Linux? SCO tried that - look where it got them - and as you say, that was Microsoft's ploy. The only difference is that Microsoft has more money to throw into the legal battle. Does that matter? IBM can throw as much or more money - and better lawyers, as the SCO case has proven - AND the largest patent portfolio in the industry - AGAINST Microsoft if Microsoft threatens the billions IBM is making off of Linux. Not to mention that Novell has plenty of cash to fight a legal battle with. The best Microsoft could do would be to financially damage one Linux distro and encourage some more FUD on the part of idiots like Daniel Lyons at Forbes.

The end result would be zero for Microsoft. Linux would remain. No damage would be done to open source in general, let alone "free" software. The GPL - version 2 or 3 - would be untouched.

This is all speculation. We have ZERO evidence that Microsoft can or will sue anybody, let alone win. As SCO demonstrated, it would YEARS before the case even went to trial. In that time, the patent code could be redesigned out and things would proceed as before.

It's all bullshit. Yet the FSF wants to "punish" Novell - and damage a major Linux distro by forcing it to fork the GNU tools - on the SPECULATION that Microsoft MIGHT SOME DAY want to sue somebody over their patents.

Microsoft made that deal just to give Ballmer some talking points and spread a bit more FUD around. That's nothing new and nothing to be concerned about.

Re:Interesting..

[sumdumass]

We've been though this before. I don't agree that GPLv3 userspace software running on top of a GPLv2 kernel will "wrangle control from him" or "add restrictions to the kernel".

Lol. I'm not talking about that at all. I'm talking about changing the licanse in a way that is incompatible with the license he agreed with then trying to use a clause in the one license to take it from him. Linus has the right to determine how his IP is used. And don't give me the shit about other developers because the GPL says You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

Now it is arguable that if the license says "GPLv2 only" as a term, then any license to a derivative work would have that. This talk about forking the kernel and attempting to upgrade it against the wishes of Linus goes directly against the terms of the license. And depending on which portions of the updates were accidentally released GPLv2 or later is a clerical error because of the necessity to retain the terms of the work it was derived from.

On the contrary, I think it is pretty clear that he opposed the DRM part from the start, and that this microscopic softening w.r.t. GPLv3 is in part caused by a watering-down of that section. Preventing DRM to restrict the freedom of GPL-covered software was one of the primary goals, so I think it is quite wrong to claim that he only opposed the implementation.

The Current draft of the GPLv3 seems to address this pretty well without placing restriction on the GPLv2 code. If fact, it even allows for DRM to co exist freely with GPLed code and it protect software freedom at the same time. Have you ever heard why he opposed it or are your just generalizing it to prove a point?

I never said he was. He is a very fine engineer, but that does not make him a deity when it comes to legal matters.

No you didn't. But I said he wasn't one. The difference is that I respect his opinion and I know it doesn't count for nothing. As for legal matters, It doesn't take a rocket scientist to read a license and determine if it works like you want it too. It doesn't take a legal scholar to understand the wording of it(or it shouldn't if it is to be effective). If and when it does either, then I will declare that license unfit for the GPL and free software purposes.

Now, What I declare doesn't mean a hill of beans to a lot of people. But I am the target of the license and if it isn't obvious to me what my rights are, you will expect other to have the same problems. This will lead to improper usages and legal challenges that will likely weaken the license.

The word correctly is subjective in this context. What is the correct way to write the license to achieve one goal may be incorrect to achieve another goal.

I think I spelled the subjectiveness out in the context it was being used. I also think the previous license does the same. We are not writing a license from scratch to achieve goals at the whim of others. The GPLv2 says that the future revision of the license needs to be within the spirit of the GPLv2. This is the context it needs to be in. If you rewrite the entire license and don't consider this and make the license radically different, any GPLv2 code pulled in without the copyright owners express consent will likely be challenged by anyone who wants to file on it's behalf.

Re:Interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

As a CS student that just implemented a (sort-of) Heapsort in Assembly, I can unequivocally state for the record:

If it's broke, fix it.

In other words, your concerns are underwhelming. While GPLv2 is (imo) a good license, it does need updating. There are demons to exorcise and whether or not the *kernel* can keep up is secondary. What's at stake is not merely old code, but future code. Both are necessary, but we can *always* refer back to old code when creating new code. We cannot as easily switch licenses mid-stream.

Again, as a CS student who has every intention of making some contributions to the Open Source and Free Software community, whether it's choosing which projects to contribute to or which license to use for new project, I'm going to end up siding with the license (and therefore project) that supports:

1. Freedom
2. Freeeeeedom
3. ???
4. Free (dom) aka No Profit.

So while I can respect Torvalds for his perspective as wanting to maintain a balance of "hey this is cool" and "hey we could actually turn a profit" I'm more of the variety of "hey, I'll be dead pretty soon and profit won't matter so I might as well contribute to a legacy of free human society that doesn't care about some stupid, antiquated notion of monetization and while I'm not going to stomp someone for making money I don't really care to support a dysfunctional system like patents or copyright as it exists so I'll sweat for something else thanks and fuck off if you can't use logic to reach the same conclusion."

But maybe that's just me.

Re:Interesting..

[init100]

If fact, it even allows for DRM to co exist freely with GPLed code and it protect software freedom at the same time.

Now I haven't read the new draft in its entirety, but how can DRM coexist freely with GPL code and still protect software freedom?

Have you ever heard why he opposed it

I read several interviews with him where he stated that the DRM clauses would be an attempt to control the hardware, and that he didn't think it was right for a software license to try to enforce restrictions upon the hardware where it runs. I can just say that I disagree with this opinion.

Re:Interesting..

[sumdumass]

Now I haven't read the new draft in its entirety, but how can DRM coexist freely with GPL code and still protect software freedom?

By only effecting the applications and process it is meant to effect/protect. This places no restrictions on GPLed software while it allows content providers and manufacturers to place the controls necessary to satisfy their obligations and concerns.

I read several interviews with him where he stated that the DRM clauses would be an attempt to control the hardware, and that he didn't think it was right for a software license to try to enforce restrictions upon the hardware where it runs. I can just say that I disagree with this opinion.

And yet, the GPLv3 draft3 is able to put anti DRM clauses in that he is in agreement with. This says one of two things, either he changed his mind and doesn't care now, or the changes overcame his issues. It definably appears to be the second mostly because of the timing of his opinion being changed and he hasn't stated that he now is for controlling hardware.

As for DRM being an attempt to control the hardware, Thats what it was doing before the clause was changed. Now is follows along the lines of no further restrictions which place the new GPL in the same Spirit as the GPLv2.

Re:Bribed.

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Ah... So that was what those boxes of red herring was! I should have known.

Re:Bribed.

[randomencounter]

Of course there was negotiation, but I'm sure Linus paid for his own lunch.

Re:viral

[CRCulver]

Linus removed the part of the cut 'n' paste GPL copyright declaration that says that later versions may apply. Therefore, only GPL version 2 is applicable to the kernel unless the copyright holders explicity change the licensing.

Re:viral

[rehabdoll]

the gpl is not viral. Also, its just a license. If the copyright holder wants to he can relicense it to whatever he wants.

Move over?

[JanneM]

Nobody's requested transfer of copyright to any code in the kernel. For the kernel, in practical terms it has never mattered what Torvalds' thoughts on the GPL is, since they'd need individual permission from every contributor to do so (or rewrite the parts that get no permission or where the contributor or their estate recipients can no longer be found). It'd be the mess of mozilla licensing all over again, but even worse.

Re:Move over?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Bullshit. It's a GOOD thing that the whole Open Source community agrees in the GPLv3. Remember that the GPLv3 will automatically relicense most of the GPLv2 software out there (IMO, the FSF shouldn't have made the GPLv3 an update, but a completely different license that people can choose to use) and that there was rumours that people could fork important projects like libc or GCC due to GPLv2 vs v3 issues.

Re:Move over?

[ZachPruckowski]

Parts of the kernel are licensed "GPL version 2 or later" (which can roll over automatically), and a lot of the lines of code are owned by a few large companies. So you can get a large percentage of the code just by getting Red Hat, IBM, Intel, Novell, etc. on board. That's not all the code, but it would represent a substantial amount of the code without having to go "door to door" with the contributors.

Re:Move over?

[JanneM]

I have no comment one way or the other on the advantages of v3 over v2 (and how could I before v3 is even published?). But most of the kernel is explicitly GPLv2 only, not the usual "GPL version 2 or later" and is thus not automatically relicenced.

Re:Move over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell on board? Do you think they are going to jump at the chance to hang themselves (again)?

Re:Move over?

[pauljlucas]

Parts of the kernel are licensed "GPL version 2 or later" (which can roll over automatically)...

The "or later" part is an option for those using the code, not the authors. If it's v2 or later, you, as a user, have the option to use v2 or v3 at your discretion. If it were changed to v3, then you no longer have the option to use v2. Hence, code that's "v2 or later" doesn't automatically become v3 and the authors can't just change it to v3 without every contributors' permission.

Re:Move over?

[ZachPruckowski]

Code licensed "version 2 or later" can be moved effortlessly into a GPLv3 kernel. It would still allow for people to use it in a v2 kernel, but it would at least be includable in a GPLv3 kernel, which is what I mean by "can roll over automatically" into a GPLv3-based kernel.

Re:Move over?

[pauljlucas]

Code licensed "version 2 or later" can be moved effortlessly into a GPLv3 kernel.

So long as either the files or portions of code that were originally marked as being "under v2 or later" are still so marked, then yes you can include them in code that contains files or portions under v3; but the "v2 or later" parts stay "v2 or later": they don't automatically become v3.

Re:Move over?

[init100]

Remember that the GPLv3 will automatically relicense most of the GPLv2 software out there

No, it won't. For the main distribution of a certain package to become GPLv3, the maintainer has to explicitly change the license. The difference from those projects that are "GPLv2 only", is that "GPLv2 or later" can be relicensed by other people than the copyright holder. If you give me a piece of software licensed under the "GPLv2 or later", I can redistribute under "GPLv3 or later" even if you hold the copyright to the software.

Re:Move over?

[init100]

You have never heard of self-punishment?

Re:Move over?

[init100]

Hence, code that's "v2 or later" doesn't automatically become v3 and the authors can't just change it to v3 without every contributors' permission.

No? Really? I think you are wrong there (IANAL though). A package licensed under "GPLv2 or later" can be relicensed by anyone as "GPLv3 or later". If it couldn't be relicensed without the explicit permission of the authors, it would effectively be the same as the "GPLv2 only" variant. The permission to relicense under a later version of the GPL is granted by the "or later" part.

Re:Move over?

[pauljlucas]

You misunderstand the license. Again, the "or later" part is for the user of the code, not the author. I'm not wrong.

Re:Move over?

[init100]

You misunderstand the license.

Or you misunderstood me.

Again, the "or later" part is for the user of the code, not the author.

I cannot see where that contradicts what I wrote.

Re:Move over?

[pauljlucas]

I cannot see where that contradicts what I wrote.

I can't help you there. Keep re-reading what I wrote until you understand it. I've explained it the best way I know how.

Re:Move over?

[mwvdlee]

Then again, with Linus' code so deeply embedded in the Linux kernel, there is just no chance in hell of ever getting a GPLv3 kernel without his approval.
Besides, a lot of kernel devs care about (and follow) his opinion. Whether you think that's smart or not doesn't matter; those people do.

Re:viral

[squiggleslash]

I don't think there's much chance of a Linux license change. Aside from the fact Linus isn't explicitly saying he thinks it's better than GPL2, there is the issue that the Linux kernel has too many copyright holders and no explicit mechanism to move to a new license beyond every single author agreeing.

Some have proposed that perhaps everything written by people who cannot be contacted or who disagree with relicensing could simply be rewritten. I think they underestimate the impracticality of such a feat. You can't easily determine the copyrights of every single piece of code within Linux, and it strikes me that unless almost everyone who is contactable is agreeable to a license change, the amount of code that'll need to be rewritten is huge.

As an aside, I think it's a shame that some of the stuff aiming to make the GPL more compatible with other licenses was struck out, especially the patent retaliation stuff. There was a very real effort to address reasons why others who generally agree with the principles of copyleft had eschewed GPL2, and that effort seems to be falling apart. I'm hoping this doesn't mean that instead of getting a license that almost everyone agrees upon, we end up with yet another incompatible license to add to the maze of incompatible licenses that, today, undermines the freedom of free software.

Glad and relieved

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad with this latest outcome. Arguably, GPLv3 shouldn't be about pleasing Linus, but his change of stance (Hell no! --> I'm skeptical) is a welcome relief.

Interested, to see Sun's reaction (I remember a Slashdot article about the next Solaris/openSolaris being GPLv3).

Re:Glad and relieved

[GundamFan]

He is a demigod in the community... If he doesn't like GPLv3 at all, and has a good reason, it is going to be a hard sell.

Misleading summary?

[penp]

If you actually read the article, he specifies:

"Whether it's actually a better license than the GPLv2, I'm still a bit skeptical, but at least it's now 'I'm skeptical' rather than 'Hell no!'" I just think the summary of this article is a bit misleading. It makes it sound like he's completely for switching to the GPLv3, when after reading the article I found he's still a bit skeptical.

Torvalds was noncommittal about whether he might try to move the Linux kernel to GPL 3--a change that would require the permission not just of Torvalds but also of all other Linux kernel copyright holders. But he didn't rule it out. "The current draft makes me think it's at least a possibility in theory, but whether it's practical and worth it is a totally different thing," he said. "Practically speaking, it would involve a lot of work to make sure everything relevant is GPLv3-compatible even if we decided that the GPL 3 is OK."

Re:Misleading summary?

[kripkenstein]

How is it misleading? The summary says "But with the latest revisions, Linus will entertain moving the kernel over to the GPL v3" - which means pretty much what the quote of Linus you gave says, "The current draft makes me think it's at least a possibility in theory, but whether it's practical and worth it is a totally different thing."

How are these significantly different?

Re:Misleading summary?

[vux984]

It makes it sound like he's completely for switching to the GPLv3, when after reading the article I found he's still a bit skeptical.

I think it would MUCH easier, and just as useful to switch from "GPLv2" to simply "GPLv2 or later". This would require less permissions (as chunks are already 'gplv2 or later') and would offend far fewer people.

For example, Linus himself. He doesn't have "switch" to GPLv3, he merely has to agree to give people the choice. "GPLv2 or later" means it still, and always will be, available under v2, but the FSF etc will no longer be prevented from creating v3 based distros using it. (And the likes of Novell and Tivo can continue using the kernel, but become blocked from using the new versions of the FSF stuff, which will be licensed v3 as new versions come out.)

I suspect Linus and many of the kernel devs would be ok with that.

Re:Misleading summary?

[danpsmith]

How is it misleading? The summary says "But with the latest revisions, Linus will entertain moving the kernel over to the GPL v3" - which means pretty much what the quote of Linus you gave says, "The current draft makes me think it's at least a possibility in theory, but whether it's practical and worth it is a totally different thing." How are these significantly different?

I'm taking it that the parent basically was just one of those kids that when they asked their parents for permission and their parents said "maybe" assumed this meant "yes."

Re:Misleading summary?

[penp]

Saying that he is going to entertain the idea without including the fact that he doesn't know whether or not it is practical puts a completely different spin on it. To summarize it even further, you could say: "It's a possibility." versus "It's a possibility, but I really don't think it's practical." and "I'm pretty pleased with it." versus "I'm pretty pleased that it's not as bad as previous drafts."

Re:Misleading summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just think the summary of this article is a bit misleading. It makes it sound like he's completely for switching to the GPLv3

Maybe you didn't read the summary?

"According to CNet, Linus Torvalds is 'pretty pleased' with the current GPL v3 draft. He said, 'Unlike the earlier drafts, it at least seems to not sully the good name of the GPL any more.' After his earlier criticism, some had questioned whether such controversies would lead to rifts in the community, especially if the kernel ended up under a different license than the GNU tools. But with the latest revisions, Linus will entertain moving the kernel over to the GPL v3."

It says he'd entertain moving to GPL3.

They have no idea..

[dgr73]

on how to get a Finn to see your point in negotiations. It's easy:

1. Invite the Finn to a sauna that's been heated to a 120C

2. Help him down a case of beer and 2 litres of vodka while enjoying the sauna for 4-5 hours

If you are still able to make your case after this, you will find the Finn much more appreciative of your point of view.

Re:They have no idea..

[nuzak]

If the sauna temp is 120C, he won't be making much of a counterargument after being boiled alive for 4-5 hours.

Re:They have no idea..

[adavies42]

I used to use a sauna on a regular basis that had a temperature of ~250F, at least up near the ceiling where the thermometer was. Since the locker room it was in was uninsulated and frequently had windows left open, I could get >200-degree temperature swings in the winter coming out of it.

Re:They have no idea..

[dgr73]

The use of sauna is in cycles of heating up and cooling down. 4-5 hours is no problem, especially if you have plenty of cold beer available.

Re:They have no idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would he be boiled?

You're probably thinking of the boiling point of water, but since you're not sitting in a tub of water there's no problem.

Actually I'm a bit chocked that someone would belive what you claimed, but I guess that explains why non-finns are afraid of heating up the saunas properly.

Re:They have no idea..

[snoyberg]

I used to use a sauna on a regular basis that had a temperature of ~250F, at least up near the ceiling where the thermometer was. Since the locker room it was in was uninsulated and frequently had windows left open, I could get >200-degree temperature swings in the winter coming out of it.

Sounds like the making of a Darwin Award to me...

Re:They have no idea..

[nacturation]

If the sauna temp is 120C, he won't be making much of a counterargument after being boiled alive for 4-5 hours. Maybe you're thinking hot tub in which case that'd be true. I've regularly used a (dry) sauna and the ambient temperature gets over 100 celcius. The reason why you don't boil alive is because of a number of things. First, you sweat a lot and the evaporation of your sweat cools you down and necessitates drinking tons of water. Second, that's the temperature of the ambient air. If you wave your arms around in it, you're likely to get scalded a bit but if you keep still, the air immediately around the surface of your body cools enough that it forms a safe layer. Finally, much like the arm waving, you don't want any kind of fan circulating the air around -- it should be stagnant enough that the safe layer of air stays there.

Re:They have no idea..

[init100]

Another reason why you won't boil is because of the low energy content of air, compared to e.g. water. This can be experienced by comparing a dry sauna with a wet sauna of the same temperature (I suggest staying below 50 degrees C for the comparison, but YMMV). The wet sauna feels much hotter, because the water vapor in the wet sauna transfer much more heat to your body than the air in the dry sauna. Therefore, wet saunas are usually heated to much lower temperatures than dry saunas.

Re:They have no idea..

[kidcharles]

Okay, good analysis of the energy density of fluids. Still, will someone explain to me the appeal of sitting in a room THAT GOD DAMN HOT?

Re:They have no idea..

[init100]

I never tried the higher parts of the temperature range, such as over 80 degrees Celsius (dry sauna), but below that, it can be pretty nice. The air is hot, but it doesn't burn your skin as you might think it would. It is a relaxing experience, and it can be quite fun with friends and a lot of beer.

It is probably better to try it yourself than to have me describe it for you. Additionally, Wikipedia has a long article about saunas.

Re:They have no idea..

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't sit in the sauna for 4-5 hours straight; generally it's more like 10-30 minutes at a time, then go outside and roll around in the snow if it's winter, otherwise maybe swim in a lake or the ocean.

As others have pointed out, air doesn't conduct heat that well, which is why people in the sauna (at least in Finland) throw water on the stove, which evaporates, circulates through the room and condenses on your skin, conducting far more heat than the air itself (just sitting in a dry sauna is pretty pointless). Depending on the intensity of the water-throwing, less experienced sauna-goers will typically need to leave quickly, sit lower or hold their head down (your face is generally both most sensitive to heat and highest up and thus receiving the first parts of the vapor, and thus the greatest amount, even more so if you're sitting in the opposite corner from the stove).

Generally the sauna isn't quite 120C, though, more commonly it's around 80-100C, but like all the numbers in the original post, it seemed slightly exaggerated.

Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[starseeker]

While Linus Torvalds is not the sole copyright holder of the Linux kernel, it cannot be denied that an "official" project to shift the kernel from GPLv2 to GPLv3 would open up some interesting possibilities.

One immediate question I would have is whether he would leave in the "or any later version" clause this time or remove it again. If he does that we might have to go through this whole mess again in another 15 years, but maybe that's the idea.

Linux as GPL3 only becomes of true importance if OpenSolaris also becomes GPL3. If that is the case, there could be an immediate and dramatic improvement seen in both projects as the code starts to flow both ways. OpenSolaris could start to take advantage of the driver code in Linux (or at least, use it to make the code Solaris would need) and Linux could start working on goodies like Dtrace support. Mutually beneficial, and everyone wins.

Of course, there is no reason beyond speculation to think Solaris will use GPL3. The situation is potentially very exciting, but it would require both Solaris and Linux to move from their current license and neither decision will be made lightly.

Fingers crossed...

Re:Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[russotto]

One immediate question I would have is whether he would leave in the "or any later version" clause this time or remove it again. If he does that we might have to go through this whole mess again in another 15 years, but maybe that's the idea.

IMO, it doesn't make sense to leave in the "or any later version" clause unless you either ARE the FSF, or you trust the FSF completely. Linus clearly doesn't fit either of those two criteria.

Re:Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[Ed Avis]

You don't have to trust the FSF completely, since even if they release a truly terrible new version of the GPL, the older ones can still be used. About the 'worst' thing the FSF could do would be to say that GPLv4 will be a permissive licence allowing anything.

Unless you have strong feelings that the current version of the GPL is the only right one, it's an easier life for everyone to leave in the 'or any later version' language. I don't agree with everything the FSF does, and in particular I think that trying to retrospectively punish Novell for their patent deal with Microsoft is a bad idea, but in the wider interests of free software we should try to keep in step with the FSF and not have a proliferation of different GPL versions making code sharing awkward.

Re:Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay! Two opportunities to post my anti-"or later" rant in two days! Okay, so here goes:
Assume that I have made code available under the GPLv2, foolishly copy/pasted from the GNU template, with the "v2 or later" clause.
Further assume that I, for whatever reason, am opposed to the new GPLv3, and I refuse to put any of my software under it.
Now users can take my code, modify it, and redistribute it under the GPLv3. Since the GPLv3 is incompatible with the v2, I can't use the code they release, unless I too switch to GPLv3. In effect, the code is just as useless to me as it would be if it had been covered by patents, or even if they had released binary-only.
So the GPLv3 is in its nature viral, spreading and infecting GPLv2 licensed code, forcing us GPLv2 developers to either adapt it ourselves, or lose the benefits that the licence was supposed to offer, the ability to see and use the source for improvements that other people released.
So if I want my source to be open, and not at the mercy of present and future whims of the FSF, I'll use the v2, without the "or later" clause.
(Or more commonly, I'll just use the MIT license. It's shorter and more permissive.)

Re:Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[EvanED]

(Or more commonly, I'll just use the MIT license. It's shorter and more permissive.)

But then some third party could take your code, reuse it, and release their modifications with the GPL3, which means you can't use their code unless you switch to GPL3. Oh look, it's the same "problem" as before.

(Not saying that it IS a problem, but be consistent... ;-))

Re:Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[0xABADC0DA]

Now with this draft you can designate a proxy who can upgrade the license with a public statement. So contributors could say "GPLv3 or later versions approved by Linus". No wonder he likes this version.

Re:Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[2short]

"About the 'worst' thing the FSF could do would be to say that GPLv4 will be a permissive licence allowing anything."

They could make GPLv4 a very restrictive license, and people could use my V2-or-later code in a V4 project, and the aggregate would be restricted in ways I found undesirable. Yes, I would still have my code under V2, it would only be the combination that was restricted against my wishes, but if you buy that argument you may as well use BSD (which, for the record, I do). My point is, if you like the balance of permissions and restrictions in V2, and you are not the FSF, V2-only is a perfectly logical choice. V2-or-later is reasonable only so far as you trust the FSF, and not just as it is now, but whatever it becomes in the future.

Re:Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[GrievousMistake]

Yes, but that's exactly what you'd expect when you release as MIT.
You presumably released as GPL to protect against just that kind of shit, but now you're screwed, because FSF in their infinite wisdom and benevolence booby-trapped their license to give themself unlimited power over everyones code. Or something. I'm pretty sure it's evil, anyway.
(Seriously, who gives themselves that kind of power? What if the government came out and said "We recommend you use this standard template for all private contracts. See here, it has all kinds of nifty standard provisions, breach of contract fines, *cough*alineallowingthestatetoreplaceanytermsinthe contractwithanupdatedversionatwill*cough*" Yes, yes, not quite the same, but allowing a third party to offer licencees an updated license at any time seems... Well, I'm sure they would condemn such a license coming from anyone but themselves.)

Re:Most interesting scenario is Linux + Solaris

[squiggleslash]

You've always been able to do that. The "Or latest version" was never part of the license, it was part of the text attached to copyrighted files stating under what license(s) you can use the materials.

The FSF are encouraging this text now for people wary of the "or later versions of the GPL" text, but it's not as if it hasn't always been possible.

(The other alternative is copyright assignment, which is also very frequently used, or a meta license that allows reuse under the meta license or any approved of by the original author. The latter is often useful to allow, for instance, interoperability between MPL and GPL projects.)

Re:Bribed.

[morgan_greywolf]

The bottom line is that FSF cannot realistically release a GPLv3 that doesn't have Linus' stamp of approval. Linux is just too big a part of the Free software community to ignore. Of course Stallman and/or Eben Moglen had to convince Linus. It seems to be that at least some of changes were in direct response to his criticisms.

Re:viral

[BlueTrin]

Commercial licenses are also viral, most of licenses do NOT allow you to redistribute/resell products using their tools/librairies, unless you pay an extravagant fee.

People who try to scare you when saying that the GPL is viral are the same ones who put patents over their code and resell you their tools for a fee.

About time!

[SanityInAnarchy]

I still don't feel that Linus "gets it" about GPLv3. I'm still not entirely sure about GPLv3 myself, and I should probably go back and read a draft.

But, at least now it's obvious he's reading and comprehending. He may still disagree with it, and I disagree with him, but it looks like they're talking now.

Which is more than I can say about the last round of flamewars... Last time, he honestly sounded like a Slashdotter who hadn't bothered to RTFA, just repeating the same unfounded arguments, some of which were blatantly wrong to anyone who actually read the license...

Re:About time!

[aardvarkjoe]

I'm still not entirely sure about GPLv3 myself, and I should probably go back and read a draft.

Last time, he honestly sounded like a Slashdotter who hadn't bothered to RTFA, just repeating the same unfounded arguments, some of which were blatantly wrong to anyone who actually read the license.

How do you know they were "blatantly wrong" if you haven't read it?

In any case, his DRM fears were most certainly reasonable given the early drafts. If you didn't bother to even read the summary, the FSF changed the GPL to improve those parts. I haven't read the the new draft, but I would hope that it was improved.

Re:About time!

[SanityInAnarchy]

I'm still not entirely sure about GPLv3 myself, and I should probably go back and read a draft.

I know it's a fine distinction, but I have read a draft. It was awhile ago, and I didn't entirely understand it (I assume wording has gotten clearer now.) Thinking I should go back and read an earlier draft, and then this one, so I can appreciate what they've done.

Re:About time!

[mwvdlee]

Just because you don't agree with him doesn't mean he doesn't "get it". It just means you have different values and wishes than him; purely subjective.
It's like saying he "doesn't get it" if he doesn't want to change the text color of his source editor from black to dark-blue.
The choice of a license is purely a matter of taste ;)

Re:About time!

[SanityInAnarchy]

It is possible that you're right. But I was making a similar distinction -- before his comments now, it genuinely seemed like he was saying something like "I don't like vi because it doesn't support search and replace." Kind of similar to people I have heard saying "I don't like Linux because it doesn't support printing."

Just because you don't know how it works doesn't mean it doesn't work. Linus really and honestly sounded like he didn't know what he was talking about -- most of his previous complaints against GPLv3 were not just a matter of opinion, but provably false.

The choice of a license is purely a matter of taste ;)

It's a bit more than that.

Who the fuck cares what text color Linus uses, or if he prefers KDE over GNOME? That is a personal preference. I don't have to use KDE just because he does. Nor will him using KDE, or even him endorsing KDE, cause GNOME to suffer.

But what license he chooses to release his code under matters a great deal, especially if others follow him. If he went to GPLv3, I'm sure Tivo wouldn't just shrug and say "It's a matter of taste..."

It is just a matter of taste, except when it affects other people. I'm sure you're not so deluded as to think the Linux license does not affect people other than Linus.

Re:About time!

[mwvdlee]

But what license he chooses to release his code under matters a great deal, especially if others follow him. If he went to GPLv3, I'm sure Tivo wouldn't just shrug and say "It's a matter of taste..."

The color of paint on my walls incluences the people coming to visit my home, but it's my taste and if they don't like it; I'm not forcing them to visit my home.

If Linus made Linux "shared source", Tivo would've just used some other OS, or they wouldn't have existed. If Linus goes GPLv3, Tivo will continue with the current GPLv2 branch.

The thing is, should Linus be forced into choosing a specific license to put his own code in just because other people prefer that license or should he choose the license he prefers himself?

It's his code, so it's entirely upto him. If he wants GPLv2, it'll stay GPLv3. If he wants to release any future code as BDS, it'll be BSD, etc. Just like I'll paint the walls in my house any damn color I want.

Re:About time!

[SanityInAnarchy]

The thing is, should Linus be forced into choosing a specific license to put his own code in just because other people prefer that license or should he choose the license he prefers himself?

No one's forcing him into anything. If he really wanted to, he could certainly try to rip out every code copyrighted anyone but him, and release the entire thing under MS Shared Source. Or he could refuse to port it to GPLv3, forcing anyone who wants GPLv3 Linux to completely rewrite anything Linus has contributed.

The point isn't what his rights are. You are entirely within your rights to be an asshole, but that still means you're an asshole.

I wouldn't mind seeing Linux go GPLv3, but I also think people should not be freeloading -- as you say, TiVo will either continue with the GPLv2 branch, or they'll switch to something else, probably a BSD. The point is, Linus should think about these kinds of consequences -- because, after all, that's the whole reason for choosing a license in the first place, to define what other people are allowed to do with your code, and how it affects others. If you truly don't care, you'll public-domain everything, or license it however you have to in order to link it against libraries you like.

It's his code, so it's entirely upto him.

Except the kernel no longer is just his code. It is pretty much entirely GPLv2, with a clause saying no later version applies. So even if he wanted GPLv3, he'll have to get every single contributor to make that change, or rewrite their code.

"Pretty Pleased", but...

[RealGrouchy]

Torvalds may be "Pretty Pleased" with the current draft, but I won't be satisfied with it until Torvalds is "Pretty Pleased with a Cherry On Top."

- RG>

And...

[bnavarro]

Watch how fast Sun becomes "displeased" with the latest GPL3 draft, and considers not open-sourcing Solaris under the GPL3 license.

Seriously, this is not a troll. I am convinced that the only reason Sun was considering this is because the Linux project was not. There is no chance in hell they want to see any of their kernel code end up inside the Linux kernel.

Re:And...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be soft. Sun's proposal was to dual license Solaris under CDDL/GPL3, anybody would be free to fork the GPL3 code. That doesn't change because Linus decides the years of effort getting signoffs to relicense Linux under GPL3 is worth it. How long did the Mozilla relicensing take, does anyone remember the "Have you seen this hacker" page?

Re:And...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell would want Slow-aris kernel code in the Linux kernel?

Re:And...

[evil_Tak]

Anybody who might like to use ZFS?

Re:And...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except ZFS will probably stay under the CDDL, which means it wouldn't matter.

Re:And...

[pjabardo]

I believe that most of the Solaris nice features that could benefit Linux is not very easy to port. On the other hand, Linux does have one very nice thing that could really benefit Solaris without much trouble: tons of drivers. Probably they would have to develop a few interfaces but this would be good for solaris.
I guess it is hard to say who would benefit the most and who would lose given a license compatibility.

Re:So who is more powerful?

[melikamp]

Stallman, obviously, is a half-Human cleric of Lathander and a Divination wizard, while Linus is a pure Gnome Enchanter wizard and has some powerful equipment.

Sure, Linus has more powerful spells, being a pure class, but, IMHO, Stallman is more powerful because he usually carries the initiative and can cast Silence, which really screws up other casting types.

Both and neither

[Anonymous Coward]

Hurd has gone nowhere because imho, it lacks a central genius like Linus. BSD gets 1/10 the development effort of Linux (if that). Many developers are willing to work with a BSD license but most aren't. Most people aren't willing to publish their hard work just so some big company can sell it back to them. Without the GPL, Linux would be a poor second cousin to BSD but neither would be as widespread as Linux has become. Both the GPL (Stallman's creation) and Linus were necessary conditions for the success of Linux.

Actually, I would add another real-world genius: Eban Moglen, the Columbia University law professor who is the legal brains behind the GPL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen

Re:Both and neither

[profplump]

Most people aren't willing to publish their hard work just so some big company can sell it back to them. Then again, big companies are more willing to pay developers to work hard on a project that they own outright and to which they can sell exclusive rights. I've worked at one of them, and they paid people to work on FreeBSD. It's not such a bad deal.

The only projects I've ever released under a GPL license are projects that I inherited under a GPL license. I'm reluctant to "give away" my code under a license that takes away (or at least reserves for me) rights from other people that may want to use it -- I'd like to really give it away, no strings attached, or to actually sell it. The GPL's it's-yours-but-you-can-only-like-I-say seems a lot like giving a "gift" to someone that you really bought for yourself.

I think I understand the motivation behind the GPL (but I could be wrong), and I'm not angry that other people use it, but to me it seems like a distasteful compromise between giving and keeping, and that sort of license holds no interest for me at all.

Re:Both and neither

[notamisfit]

Hurd has gone nowhere because imho, it lacks a central genius like Linus. Hurd has gone nowhere because it's a dead end. We've got our free *nix kernel, thanks for playing.

BSD gets 1/10 the development effort of Linux (if that). Many developers are willing to work with a BSD license but most aren't. Most people aren't willing to publish their hard work just so some big company can sell it back to them.

Oddly enough, with that 1/10 split across five major development projects, the BSD kernels largely hold their own against Linux, and the userland tools are IMO nicer, less bloated and better documented. The real reason for the lack of BSD marketshare is the AT&T lawsuit. By the time it was settled in 1994, Red Hat and Caldera were both selling commercial products and there were a number of 'hobbyist' distros.

Re:Both and neither

[suggsjc]

seems a lot like giving a "gift" to someone that you really bought for yourself.

Honey, for your birthday your getting a boob job...

Re:Both and neither

[Knuckles]

We've got our free *nix kernel

I don't want to start a discussion about whether HURD is a good idea or not, but it is certainly not a Unix kernel. Unix is just a possible personality.

Re:Both and neither

[silicon not in the v]

Then again, big companies are more willing to pay developers to work hard on a project that they own outright and to which they can sell exclusive rights. I've worked at one of them, and they paid people to work on FreeBSD. It's not such a bad deal.

There. The second time you got it right. One of the reasons why FOSS works so well is that people are mostly programming to their interests. Big companies can pay people to do things that they don't really care about, but it's generally not as high a quality of work as people who are working on something because they love it.

I'm reluctant to "give away" my code under a license that takes away (or at least reserves for me) rights from other people that may want to use it -- I'd like to really give it away, no strings attached, or to actually sell it. The GPL's it's-yours-but-you-can-only-like-I-say seems a lot like giving a "gift" to someone that you really bought for yourself.

Here's a way of thinking of the GPL that may change some of your attitude to it. Let's say you were a generous donor to the community and wanted to donate a really nice new playground to the city parks that would be free and available for anyone to use. To make sure your gift stayed available for everyone to use, you add the condition that the city cannot close it off and make it a "pay to enter" playground. Your gift was to the people in the community, but if you don't have that condition on it, it leaves the city with the "freedom" to take that gift away from those you wanted to give it to.

Re:Both and neither

[steelfood]

The GPL is a gift with strings attached. Yes, you benefit from it, but so does everyone else. It's saying, you can use the code I wrote if you let others use what you wrote. GPL might be the minimum conditions before code can be considered free (the most restrictive, but still free), and BSD might be considered the maximum (no restrictions whatsoever).

Re:Both and neither

[metamatic]

I'm reluctant to "give away" my code under a license that takes away (or at least reserves for me) rights from other people that may want to use it...

The GPL does not take away or reserve any rights whatsoever.

Rather, the GPL grants people rights that they would not otherwise have, subject to specific conditions.

It's true that it doesn't grant them as many rights as (say) the BSD license, and has different strings attached, but it's misleading to talk of it taking away rights. Just say that you don't like the conditions attached to the GPL's granting of rights, we'll know what you're talking about and respect your honesty in not misrepresenting the GPL.

Re:Both and neither

[needacoolnickname]

Here's a way of thinking of the GPL that may change some of your attitude to it. Let's say you were a generous donor to the community and wanted to donate a really nice new playground to the city parks that would be free and available for anyone to use. To make sure your gift stayed available for everyone to use, you add the condition that the city cannot close it off and make it a "pay to enter" playground. Your gift was to the people in the community, but if you don't have that condition on it, it leaves the city with the "freedom" to take that gift away from those you wanted to give it to.

That's an excellent analogy for a donation, like you called it in the beginning.

A gift though, once given has all strings cut, legally that is. At least according to Judges Judy, Joe Brown, and Mathis. The others I don't like or watch though.

Re:Both and neither

[Kjella]

I don't have a problem with people who choose to BSD license, if that is what floats your boat. I don't think any pro-GPL people mind that at all since it's GPL-compatible and can be used by them in the same way as other code. I do think it gets a little funny when the very same people that say they couldn't care less if it's used in proprietary software without any contributions back, complain about GPL projects doing exactly the same. What are they asking for, "I BSD my code, so you should BSD yours"? If you wanted code that you could use with your code, perhaps you should have required that any derivates be released under a compatible license too? Oh, wait we have that.

[GPL code] seems a lot like giving a "gift" to someone that you really bought for yourself.

You've nailed it down exactly, it's not a gift. It's something you put out there in the hopes that others will improve on it and help you too. Or that if you release a tool, someone else will release some other tool you need. Chipping in (contributing) is voluntary, but the people contributing just want it to be a community tool box. It's not there for some company to come in, take your tools and upgrade them then sell them back to you. If the open software community is about "having an itch to scratch", then the GPL is the essence of "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours". I guess it just proves that "help to self-help" is a much bigger market than "altruistic charity".

Re:Both and neither

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again we have somebody who's got a flawed perception of the GPL because he thinks too much as a developer.

The GPL was not written for developers, it was written for end-users. The goal of the GPL is that nobody can tell a user that a bug won't get fixed, a feature won't be added, or they can't get your data out, and so on. And that's why some companies are so afraid of it: their business model is based on denying these, or charging way above market rate for them.

The way to achieve that goal was to entitle the end-user to the code and a license that allows in to do what he needs himself, or get somebody else to do it. All the sharing, viral, giving back, no cost, can't sell me back my code, blah, blah are just consequences.

The BSD license, OTOH, doesn't grant users rights, because anyone can get the thing and change a few things so only they can fix it.

That's not to say one is superior to the other. They just don't serve the same people. Just consider that next time you pick one or the other...

Re:Both and neither

[Hatta]

I'm reluctant to "give away" my code under a license that takes away (or at least reserves for me) rights from other people that may want to use it

The only right the GPL reserves is the "right" to take away the rights of others.

If you want to give away your code with no strings attached, don't use the BSD license. If you do, the end user is not guaranteed to be able to modify the software to fit his needs, and that's one huge fucking string. To me, THAT is a distasteful compromise between giving and keeping.

Re:Both and neither

[Anonymous Coward]

Why go with the BSD rather than putting your work into the public domain then? What advantages does the BSD have over going directly to the public domain?

Re:Both and neither

[init100]

It's true that it doesn't grant them as many rights as (say) the BSD license, and has different strings attached, but it's misleading to talk of it taking away rights.

Some people tend to regard the public domain as some kind of baseline for works that aspire to be free, and then view everything that is claimed to be free but not as "free" as works in the public domain, as restricted and "taking away rights". Anyway, I agree with you and not them. I view the "restrictions" in the GPL just like the "restrictions" against killing, raping, robbing or otherwise harming people in society at large. The BSD or the public domain may be more "free" in that they would allow people to kill each other, but that's really not freedom to me. Those who are killed (or otherwise harmed) have their freedom seriously infringed.

Re:Both and neither

[profplump]

Here's my take on that same situation:

If I want to have a park on my land, I can build a park. I can encourage other people to use it. I could even set up a trust to keep the park going after I die, presumably in near perpetuity given trustees with a similar mindset.

Or I could give the land to the local municipality and let the people, through their local government, decide how best to use the land. Maybe they want a park there forever. Maybe they'd rather have a pool. Maybe they'd rather build a library on it. Maybe they'd like to sell it to some land developer and make a quick buck. If I'm really going to give the land to the people I have to accept that they might do things I don't like with it, otherwise it's a just a way to make myself feel good without really giving.

Re:Both and neither

[profplump]

The GPL reserves for the copyright holder, the exclusive right to release derivative software under any non-GPL license. There are probably other rights reserved, but that's the one that turns me off.

You might not be bothered by that. You might want to contain control of your code. There's nothing wrong with that, but it silly to pretend that the GPL doesn't reserve some of the rights of the copyright holder, and/or impose restrictions on the use of GPL licensed code in contexts outside the orignal project.

Re:Both and neither

[profplump]

As long as people see the GPL as just a software license and a way to share without really giving, I have no qualms. But I personally don't want to do that, and the parent to my original post cited people's desire to publish their software without giving up control as a flaw in BSD licensing -- it's not a flaw, it just has different goals.

Maybe I'm exceptional, but when I publish software at no cost it's because I believe A) it has little monetary value or B) the market in which it is valuable is difficult for me break into. And if either of those is true I'm happy to let people do whatever they will with my software, becuase I'm not going to do anything with it.

Other people may have other criteria for when they want to publish software. They may be unmotivated to sell their software and just want community recognition. They may hate corporations in general and want to make it hard for big software houses to use their code (and I'm not saying big software houses couldn't use GPL code, but as a business reality it is harder than using non-GPL code). The GPL license might be great in those cases, but I have trouble believing I'm the only one who really wants to give away, not just share, the software that I publish at no cost.

Re:Both and neither

[metamatic]

No, it's copyright law that reserves that right to the copyright holder. The GPL merely fails to grant it to additional parties.

Re:Both and neither

[profplump]

Explain to me the difference between "fails to grant" and "reserves" in practical terms.

Re:Both and neither

[ggvaidya]

Wow, is there a long line of people trying to tell you what the "motivation" behind the GPL is, or what?

Okay, here's my take on it (none of my immediate sibling posts have taken up this viewpoint, so I might as well): the GPL is there to protect the rights of the users, not the developers. BSD code is designed to be "free", like free code: you can take it, break it, do what you want with it, put it together in strange new ways, or just throw it away. It's best for things like the network stack, or the FTP program, so instead of rewritting your own (potentially buggy) implementation every time you need one, you just take the official BSD copy. You (the developer) are happy, everybody else (including the BSD developers) is happy because their FTP program/network stack "just works". The BSD developers also don't have to spend time working around broken FTP programs, so they're happy too.

The GPL, on the other hand, protects the rights of the users. I give you my brilliant FTP clone (with the BSD code inside), and it works fine for you - it serves your needs, copies files at unimaginable speeds, and has a cute iguana icon which nods during downloads. The GPL doesn't care about all that. What it cares about is: does this software belong to you, the user? Can you do what you like with it? Can you modify it for any specific needs you have? Can you make, say, a mobile phone version of it so you can use it from your phone? Can you change it to use your own language? These are all things guaranteed to you by the GPL. This creates incentive for users to use GPL software (since they are guaranteed to be able to do whatever they want with it), as well as to contribute back (since they know that whatever modifications are made to the "official" distribution, they will always be free to put their changes back in).

So, the "free" in BSD's license refers to the freedom of the code, while the "free" in GPL refers to the freedoms guaranteed to the user: specifically, the four freedoms the FSF considers essential (when it comes to software, atleast). The GPL is the way it is not because it's trying to establish a "hang-together-or-we'll-all-hang-separately" rule, or because it's trying to establish a free software utopia, but to guarantee the rights of the users of GPL'd software to the freedoms the FSF considers essential.

Sorry if you've heard all this before; it's been a long week, and writing all that was sort of relaxing. =)

Re:Both and neither

[metamatic]

In practical terms, the difference is that saying the GPL does not grant people the right to take rights away from other people is an intellectually honest statement that will get your viewpoint listened to, whereas saying that the GPL reserves special rights for some will likely see other people dismiss your point of view as FUD-spreading.

Strange

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the latest draft is worse than previous ones.

Re:Bribed.

[civilizedINTENSITY]

I honestly don't see how Linus is that relevant.

The anti-tivo clause looks pretty useless to me

[stratjakt]

And whats to stop anyone from just forkign the kernel, and whatever they want, and keeping it on the v2 license?

What are the odds that Linus and crew get "locked out", if such a fork took place? I'm thinking along the lines of X.org replacing XFree86.

Re:The anti-tivo clause looks pretty useless to me

[Rogerborg]

What's to persuade anyone to use J. Random Forkoff's kernel, rather than the Linus kernel? FOSS is littered with the corpses of dead forks.

Re:The anti-tivo clause looks pretty useless to me

[grumbel]

### And whats to stop anyone from just forkign the kernel, and whatever they want, and keeping it on the v2 license?

Nothing, but in five or ten years that kernel would have little or no use beside some historic value if the kernel goes GPLv3.

Re:The anti-tivo clause looks pretty useless to me

[stratjakt]

Maybe because IBM, Novell, and other big boys decide they don't like GPLv3, so they abandon it.

Why did X.org kill the original project? All the big guys left. They didn't like the license.

I could envision Linus sitting around twiddling his thumbs waiting for patches to rubber stamp, while cobwebs grow on his inbox.

Re:The anti-tivo clause looks pretty useless to me

[fatphil]

And what's to stop people using the 0.9 kernel from the early 90s?

Pretty much the same answer.

Re:The anti-tivo clause looks pretty useless to me

[John Meacham]

There is no need to fork. all that needs to happen is the adding in of the v2 "or any later version" clause. then linux code can be used with gpl2 and gpl3 code. Even if some GPL3 code gets integrated into the kernel, the GPL2 or greater code can still be used under the GPL2 if wanted.

There can be no danger of your code becoming less free by adding a GPLX or later clause no matter what the FSF does because people can always choose the abide by the GPL2 rather than a later version. The only thing that can happen is your code becomes more free. Nothing the FSF does can make current uses of your code disallowed.

So, when writing new code, you have a choice now. say GPL2 or greater if you don't care about the patent restrictions or say GPL3 or greater if you do or 3BSD if you don't care about any restrictions at all. This way, all code can be combined with everything, which is really what is important here. Getting to utilize all the free source code resources available to you when authoring projects.

But is he "pretty pleased with sugar on top"?

[geoffrobinson]

That's the real question.

Mozilla tri-license transition

[tepples]

Some have proposed that perhaps everything written by people who cannot be contacted or who disagree with relicensing could simply be rewritten. That's what happened in the case of Mozilla software. It was originally under Netscape Public License. Under the transition to the current tri-license, the NPL allowed AOL to relicense most of Mozilla as MPL+GPL+LGPL, but I seem to remember that some contributions had to be rewritten.

Re:Mozilla tri-license transition

[squiggleslash]

But Mozilla was, what, two years old? And for the most part, almost all the significant developers were Netscape employees.

Linux has got to be about 15 years old, and no one organization holds the copyright on the bulk of the code. It'll take a lot more work to make a relicensing possible.

Re:Mozilla tri-license transition

[tepples]

Linux has got to be about 15 years old, and no one organization holds the copyright on the bulk of the code. It'll take a lot more work to make a relicensing possible. But shouldn't the combined resources of IBM, Intel, and Red Hat make locating contributors more feasible?

Re:Mozilla tri-license transition

[squiggleslash]

Well, given they're very large corporations, and given this is the 21st century, which means, according to the Cyberpunk novels and movies, the governments will be replaced by giant, corrupt, corporations with their own secret police forces and stuff, I'm sure they'll be able to do it. Agents of IBM and Intel will be kicking down doors before you know it, trying to find "hacker5@ix.netcom.com"...

I'm sure the RedHat agent will be more classy, as befits the name, looking every bit like Philip Marlowe, only with a red hat.

Re:Bribed.

[morgan_greywolf]

No? Who's bigger and more well-known amongst todays geeks: Stallman on Linus? I'll bet there's a bunch of young whippersnappers out there who have never heard of rms. (HEY YOU KIDS, GET OFF MY LAWN!) Compare to Linus. Not since Ken has a hacker been known universally by his first name only. If I say 'Linus' in the context of software, you immediately know I'm talking about the blanket-holding, piano-playing kid in the Peanuts cartoon.

Re:Bribed.

[seaturnip]

Who the hell is Ken?

whooops.

[morgan_greywolf]

s/I'm talking/I'm not talking/

whoops. Preview, preview..

License upgrades by proxy

[tepples]

One immediate question I would have is whether he would leave in the "or any later version" clause this time or remove it again. The annotated diff between GPLv3 draft 1 and GPLv3 draft 2, page 59, section 14, footnote 103, suggests a new method to handle this: "or any later version approved by Linus Torvalds".

Re:License upgrades by proxy

[crt]

This is modded funny, but is actually true - there is a new method for assigning a proxy to decide at a later date if the code should be licensed under a later GPL version.

Re:License upgrades by proxy

[Anonymous Coward]

This is modded funny, but is actually true I think the moderator is making fun of the fact that tepples got the revision numbers wrong. He probably meant "between GPLv3 draft 2 and GPLv3 draft 3".

Re:Bribed.

[samkass]

The article submitter paints a bit rosier picture than the article and quotes actually support:

Torvalds: "The current draft makes me think it's at least a possibility in theory, but whether it's practical and worth it is a totally different thing," he said. "Practically speaking, it would involve a lot of work to make sure everything relevant is GPLv3-compatible even if we decided that the GPL 3 is OK."

Basically, GPLv3 makes it go from "impossible" to "maybe someday". I doubt Linux is moving off of GPLv2 anytime soon, though. I doubt most GPLv2 projects are, and suspect those that do will fork instead of go completely to GPLv3. This will more or less be the open source community shooting itself in the foot.

Re:So who is more powerful?

[evil_Tak]

I suspect Linus might object to his characterization as a Gnome...is there a race that clearly correlates with KDE?

Re:viral

[ClosedSource]

"Commercial licenses are also viral, most of licenses do NOT allow you to redistribute/resell products using their tools/librairies, unless you pay an extravagant fee."

And this is viral how? Whether you believe the GPL is viral or not, the fundemental difference is that commerical licenses don't require you to distribute your indepedently written source code even if it's based on their libraries. As far as fees are concerned, many allow you to use their libraries simply because you paid for the tool with no per machine license.

Re:Bribed.

[morgan_greywolf]

Wanna hear a bedtime story, lil' seaturnip? Wayyyyyyy a long time ago, in a land far, far away (well, New Jersey) there were two Multics hackers and a PDP-11...

Re:viral

[blue.strider]

But there is no centralized copyright holder. Linux is the work of a loose knitted world-wide community of contributors. Who is going to get a change approval from every single one of them?

"or any later version" insanity

[ville]

I've always wondered that who as a non-FSF entity would leave in the "or any later version" clause. That's just insane and I don't understand why a "good" organization like FSF, which also probably tries to educate people, even has such a potentially dangerous clause in their license.

Maybe the clause is just that, a clever scheme to teach people to read carefully. I was once in a situation where an employment contract had a "or any later version" clause. The contract was contested and found to be in fact illegal in Finland. I realize contract and copyright law are different, just an example that read before you agree to anything.

// ville

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[vux984]

That's just insane and I don't understand why a "good" organization like FSF, which also probably tries to educate people, even has such a potentially dangerous clause in their license.

Why is it insane? There is nothing potentially dangerous about it.

Your code doesn't become 'GPLv3 or later' when GPLv3 comes out, it STAYS 'GPLv2 or later', meaning it is now available to someone who wants to use it under either the v2 or v3 licenses.

Thus there is no danger that at some point in the future someone won't be able to use your code with all the rights you assigned to it when you licensed it v2 or later.

However, if someone down the road likes v5, and starts up a GPLv5 project and they want to use your code, they can. Because at that point your code will be available under v2, v3, v4, and v5.

Thus the absolute WORST case of releasing your code as 'GPLv2 or later' is that one day the FSF will release a license you don't like, and people using it will still be allowed to use your code.

IE, the worst case is that future users will have MORE rights to use your code than they have today, if the GPL were to become even less restrictive (e.g. became, say, a BSD-like license). After all if the GPL gets more restrictive people can ALWAYS use your code with ALL the rights of GPLv2.

I think for nearly all of us, that is pretty much a non-issue. The odds the GPL will become less restrictive than v2 is practically zilch. And even if it did, no harm could come to people who want to use our code.

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[russotto]

There's two dangers to the "any other version" clause

1) An overly permissive future license allows other people to use and distribute your code in their product without providing source or with restrictions you find repugnant. Not very likely, but consider if the FSF got itself sued for software patent violations or something and Microsoft actually obtained control of it.

2) A more restrictive future license allows other people to use and distribute your code in their product without allowing you to use their code without those new restrictions. This is much more likely.

I don't think it's insane for the FSF to recommend the "and all future versions" clause; they trust themselves, after all. But I don't see why anyone else should.

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[vux984]

1) An overly permissive future license allows other people to use and distribute your code in their product without providing source or with restrictions you find repugnant. Not very likely, but consider if the FSF got itself sued for software patent violations or something and Microsoft actually obtained control of it.

I see your point. I agree its extremely unlikely.

I'd be interested to know if there is ANY sort of official guidance from the FSF in terms of what can and cannot be done with the GPL. RMS is pretty bright, after all, you'd think there'd be some sort of contingency to prevent someone from authoring a GPLv34 that co-opts everything and gives lock stock and barrel to Microsoft or Novell or SCO or RedHat to do whatever they want with it.

And even if MS managed to coerce the FSF into writing: "GPLv4: All your base are belong to us!" I'm not sure it would stand up in court, where it would be surely challenged. Everyone who bought into the GPL and FSF philosophy has an implied understanding of what the spirit of the GPL is, and evolving into something completely different would be a violation of that understanding. I simply don't think Microsoft could just buy out the FSF, and then take the Vista EULA and label it GPLv4 and have that stand.

2) A more restrictive future license allows other people to use and distribute your code in their product without allowing you to use their code without those new restrictions. This is much more likely.

That is actually rather the point of the or 'later clause'. To allow future users flexibility of license.

If I release gplv2, you release gplv3, and someone else releases gplv4, then a project that uses our three projects can never exist in the first place. The 'or later clause' is to prevent the proliferation/evolution of F/OSS licenses from blocking users from creating new projects.

Yes I might be annoyed that someone elses combined project is v4, but I'd be more annoyed if I couldn't write a project because of different GPLs without the or later. Its a 'give and take' situation, and the whole FSF/copyleft philosophy supports give and take.

I, for one, am prepared to release with 'or later' because the fact that other people release with 'or later' will ultimately help me when I'm building projects. Its the same rationale one uses for the GPL in the first place. Its a good way of dealing with license proliferation, and is reasonably future proof.

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[ConceptJunkie]

It's very contrived, but it's conceivable that, say, Microsoft could secretly pay off the FSF to issue a GPL 4 that could do things the "or later version" people never dreamed of.

I don't care how good the FSF, and I believe their motives are pure and good, in the crazy legal and technological environment, I could see a future where the FSF isn't what it is now, or even that there is a battle over what is the FSF or what is a valid new version of the GPL.

I would never go for the "or later version" clause. Of course, I also think the political statement in the GPL3 drafts about how "DRM is teh EV1L" are just ridiculous. DRM is "teh EV1L" but they should save their pontificating for the blogs. It's an arbitrary restriction for no other reason than the FSF wants to make a statement (and I even agree). Shouldn't there be a clause that GPL software can't be used in devices that squash kittens or that GPL software can't be used in world-annihilating Doomsday devices? I'm sure everyone would support preserving kittens and the world, but I don't think we need to codify that.

I understand the new draft qualifies this clause more strictly, but it's still the equivalent of a bumper-sticker slogan in a serious legal document. I wouldn't include "Save the Whales" or "Free Tibet" in my will, why should the GPL complain (implicitly) about the evils of DRM?

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

> I've always wondered that who as a non-FSF entity would leave in the "or any later version" clause.

???. The "or later" clause is about having a way to close any loophole that could be discovered in a GPL version.

Say you have released your code in v2 only, then, the code has been modified by 10 people.

5 Years later, 2 of those people are dead, so relicense is not an option, and a big hole is discovered in the GPLv2 (let's say it is unenforceable in courts). In that case you code is toasted.

By having the "or later" clause, ANYBODY can fork and relicense your code under GPLv3, which have closed the loophole, and you code is usable again. So, by using the "or later" clause, you commit the the GPL spirit, not the current GPL letter.

Now, FSF have an even stronger protection than the "or later" clause. *All* FSF code have its copyright assigned to FSF. FSF can license all the FSF code under whatever license they want. This make sure that they can save the code, regardless of what happens (say if the "or later" clause was illegal in some foreign country, or whatever).

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[jackbird]

Because DRM, in the form of trusted platform chips, represents an end-run around free software. If you have access to the source, but the TPM chip requires anything you run on your hardware to be signed, you don't really have any of the four freedoms.

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[mwvdlee]

People who choose GPL over BSD (or a similarly less restrictive license) do so because they WANT the restrictions in GPL. The possibility of future licenses becoming less restrictive is exactly the reason for them to remove the "later versions" clause.

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[ConceptJunkie]

Well, it seems to me then that there must be some way that such a platform would violate the GPL without the GPL having to explicitly state "this platform violates the GPL".

I'm hardly a legal scholar, those kinds of things make my head hurt, but it seems to me that the "trusted platform" thing is ipso facto what the software runs on, even if it takes software to implement such a platform.

I don't know, I'm probably butchering the logic as bad as a Microsoft marketing person, a SCO CEO, or a presidential campaign manager, but I still think there must be a better way to do it without having to be so explicit. I suppose I should also review the latest draft again and compare it with previous versions. I think anything that could perpetuate the image that Open Source people are Birkenstock-wearing, unshowered, raving, pinko zealots doesn't help the cause...

DRM is suffering setbacks, at least in terms of content, and the "trusted computing" thing hasn't taken off the way I thought it would. I think market forces are the answer to defeating DRM (well, that and _real_ antitrust action by the government). I think the tide is changing.

Oh well, I need more caffeine, maybe I'll get more work done and be less hopelessly idealistic.

Re:"or any later version" insanity

[jackbird]

That's exactly what they're doing. The GPL3 only requires that you share encryption keys that make the software build, compile, and run on the hardware. Private encryption keys used within the program to protect its data are peachy.

Re:viral

[Anonymous Coward]

and resell you their tools for a fee.

GASP! What a bunch of bloody bastards! Imagine that - people wanting to earn money writing software!

this just means he's not puking on it

[Russ Nelson]

The lede and the story don't have quite the same spin. If you read the story it's clear that Linus is pretty pleased that they've gotten rid of the worst aspects in the previous draft. He's no longer puking all over this draft but he's by no means ready to switch.

Re:So who is more powerful?

[Anonymous Coward]

is there a race that clearly correlates with KDE? Soon. Wait for the release of KKKde. It will come loaded with a White-colored theme.

Surely?

[matt me]

Surely if *any* fraction of the kernel code is licensed under the GPLv3, this would prevent a manufacturer building the kernel into a device which they do not permit users to modify. The device would include a mixture of GPLv2 and GPLv3-licensed code, so they'd be legally obliged to conform to the terms of both licences and allow users to hack. Obviously, if only a few kernel components were under the GPLv3, they could build around them, but if this were 10%, they'd be forced to use older kernel releases. If the device demanded a new component that is only found in a part GPLv3 kernel, say virtualisation, the manufacturer would have to conform.

Re:Surely?

[ZachPruckowski]

The kernel is currently distributed under GPL v2. Some terms allow for it to be "v2 or later", meaning someone can use the code in a GPLv3 kernel. Software companies could also go to dual-licensing and offer it under v2 or v3. Then you could use that code in either a GPLv2 kernel or a GPLv3 kernel. You can't have a part-v3, part-v2 kernel because of license incompatibilities. Thus a kernel would be offered as either pure v2 or pure v3.

Re:Surely?

[Kjella]

Surely if *any* fraction of the kernel code is licensed under the GPLv3, this would prevent a manufacturer building the kernel into a device which they do not permit users to modify. The device would include a mixture of GPLv2 and GPLv3-licensed code (...)

If it is *exclusively* licensed under GPLv3 (well, or higher) then yes. If all the current kernel code said "GPLv2 and higher", they could do that. However, since a lot of code is licensed under GPLv2 only, the GPLv3 code is incompatible with the GPLv2's license requirements. Thus it's not possible to insert any fraction of GPLv3 code in the current kernel.

Re:Bribed.

[Brad Eleven]

Stallman on Linus?

Ugh, I just got a visual.

Re:Bribed.

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Linus is, I grant you, a figurehead. I wonder who does more kernel development, Linus or Redhat? How about IBM? How about Linus vs Novell? Yeah. His historical significance is immense but his value as a figurehead to me (and who the hell am I, anyway), is in decline.

Re:Bribed.

[GuidoW]

AFAIK it was a disused PDP-7...

Re:viral

[dougmc]

Who is going to get a change approval from every single one of them?

It doesn't really matter, because if Linus wanted to, he could start releasing changes to the Linux kernel under GPLv3 (and it specifically said GPLv3) -- so the old code would be under GPLv2 (or really, whatever version of the GPL you preferred, because unless you specifically say what version of the GPL applies, people can pick whichever version of the GPL they want. Read section 9 from the GPL for more on that) and the new Linus provided code would be GPLv3, with all the baggage that entails.

So, if you were a company that GPLv3 punished, then you'd be punished when dealing with these new kernels, even though most of the kernel didn't have a GPLv3 specific license.

Now, this assumes that Linus wants GPLv3, which so far he does not. If he doesn't want GPLv3, somebody could attempt to sneak in some patches/new code with a GPLv3-only license, and if Linus put them into the kernel, then the kernel would then have the same GPLv3 baggage. But I suspect that Linus would reject any such patches for now, and if one was snuck in, it would probably be removed if found later.

In any event, even if the kernel remains non-GPLv3, we may find some commonly used packages going GPLv3-only -- and I'm thinking of things like gcc, binutils, fileutils, textutils, etc. If this happens (and it sound very likely), then anybody who doesn't want to be restricted by the GPLv3 restrictions will not be able to distribute updated versions of these packages. In the short term, this won't be such a big deal, but in the long term, it certainly will be.

I appreciate what the FSF is trying to do with GPLv3, but I suspect that it's going to cause the `free software movement' a lot of pain, as companies will probably try to move to BSD from Linux (and even then they won't really get away from the GPL, as the BSDs use gcc as their compiler. Perhaps there will be another gcc fork, with the official GPLv3 version and the fork still being GPLv2 or GPLvwhatever?)

Great News

[Outland Traveller]

I am very glad to see this positive step. When RMS and Linus are aligned, great things happen.

GPL v3 is Novell-cide

[denis-The-menace]

Imagine this scenario:
Everybody but Novell gives the go-ahead for GPL v3 in the Linux kernel:
-Novell says no: They have to re-write/back port everything new in the Kernel for SUSE
-Novell says yes: Novell must reneg on the "Deal with the Devil" and get sued by MS
      or
-Novell says yes: Novell get sued by the FSF for not reneging on the "Deal with the Devil".

Either way it's loose, loose, loose for Novell.

Re:GPL v3 is Novell-cide

[ZachPruckowski]

There are scenarios under which Novell could get an arrangement in the GPLv3 prohibiting new deals but not blocking existing deals. This would make Novell the only company able to have such an MS deal.

Re:GPL v3 is Novell-cide

[Master of Transhuman]

I think you're overestimating the effects of option 2: Microsoft sues Novell, AND option 3: FSF sues Novell. Odds are neither would not occur, and if it did, Novell wouldn't lose much. Certainly it would be preferable to having to give up doing Linux, on which they have based the future of their business.

This applies even more so to Novell being sued by the FSF. First of all, the current draft has the grandfather clause which exempts Novell. Even if that clause is removed in the final version, I doubt the FSF would win that lawsuit - and even if they did, we're talking years down the road and then Novell would have to deal with Microsoft's presumed lawsuit (which might or might not happen). Also Microsoft would be involved in the FSF lawsuit by definition since they are involved in the deal itself. I don't see the FSF lawyers beating both Novell's AND Microsoft's lawyers. Again, even if they did, the court would rearrange the deal so that most parties wouldn't lose much, most likely. Which would probably mean the FSF wouldn't entirely win, and Novell would continue to sell SUSE under whatever license.

In other words, we would be seeing even MORE clearly how the FSF would be willing to TRY to destroy one of the five major Linux distros just to push their notion of "free" software.

I don't see the FSF coming out of that looking like a rose.

If you think there's trouble now over the GPLv3, wait until the FSF screws up by doing something THAT stupid.

This is WHY the grandfather clause was put into the current draft - because it was OBVIOUS to EVERYONE that most of this was merely to "punish" Novell for doing a pointless and irrelevant deal with Microsoft. And that makes the FSF look like what they are: fanatics willing to destroy OSS in order to push their "free" software ideology.

All that did was emphasize what idiots they already proved they are with the stupid idea that Linux has to be referred to as "GNU/Linux".

Fergeddaboutit. Novell will come out of this with no problems. So will Linux.

It's the FSF that needs to watch their ass.

Re:GPL v3 is Novell-cide

[fucksl4shd0t]

Either way it's loose, loose, loose for Novell.

They could just buy a wrench and tighten that fucker up.

Re:Bribed.

[ttrafford]

Linus spends his time reviewing submitted patches, AIUI. It's project management, but a required part of development on a largish scale.

Re:viral

[Anonymous Coward]

the gpl is not viral

the sky is not blue. look, I can make baseless claims too!

Re:Bribed.

[Otto]

You know.
Ken.

Re:viral

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly ! :)

Joke aside I just wanted to say that open source licenses are not that viral as commercial companies are trying to make you believe ...
The only thing that was a problem is the obligation to release source code, which is probably why, like most of the people, I would opt for a BSD license over a GPL ...

Re:viral

[Knuckles]

Nobody, and that's why in all likelihood it will stay v2 unless v3 is very clearly more desirable to kernel folks. Note: not each and every contributor has to approve. If a vast majority is for v3, but a few people have died, don't answer, or have contributed insignificant amounts of code, it is likely that after public announcements are made and some time has passed, the majority can still change to v3 (and possibly rewrite a bit).

Re:So who is more powerful?

[GuidoW]

is there a race that clearly correlates with KDE?

Dragons, maybe? They used to have a dragon as their project mascot.

Obligatory...

[VGPowerlord]

Slow news day? :)

You must be new here. :P
(Every day is a slow news day to certain /. editors)

Re:Bribed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like my uncle Jed used to say, "ain't no such thing as a free lunch".

Great News but irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? Figureheads make niceypoo, blah, blah, blah.

The linux kernal is going whereever patentholder IBM wants it to go.

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-028.pdf

Re:Bribed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lemon Party?

Re:Bribed.

[nacturation]

I honestly don't see how Linus is that relevant. Linus is like the head priest of the bazaar.

Re:Bribed.

[squiggleslash]

Albeit, a priest who doesn't believe in God.

You're right; we can both play with it

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a gift that you give to someone that you really bought for yourself. That's the whole point. It's not like material goods where giving them away means that you don't have them anymore (except for things like when you give your wife an electric screwdriver). Linus is quoted to say something like: "You donate an hour of your time and get back a hundred hours of everyone else's work." (Linus said it way better than I remember it.) So, there's nothing distasteful about it at all.

Another advantage of the GPL is that you can double license. In other words, if someone wants to fold your software into their proprietary product, they can negotiate a separate license with you that lets them do so.

Re:viral

[marcosdumay]

The patent clauses didn't all go away. Some (it seems that the most important) where incorporated at the main text and aren't exceptions anymore.

Re:Bribed.

[morgan_greywolf]

Yes, it was. I wanted to see who was paying attention. ;)

Tivo-ization

[Endimyon]

I still don't understand why Tivo-ization is viewed as "bad" from people who want to develop or used GPL software.

It's the same principal as downloading music. It isn't theft since it's only a copy of something which continues to exist. And anybody who is doing it probably wouldn't bother to do the entire project from scratch (ie, wouldn't buy the album). It doesn't diminsh or affect the value of the original code.

Why do people get all annoyed about it when somebody uses the software they wrote in that way?

Re:Tivo-ization

[TuringTest]

It's the same principal as downloading music. It isn't theft since it's only a copy of something which continues to exist. And anybody who is doing it probably wouldn't bother to do the entire project from scratch (ie, wouldn't buy the album). It doesn't diminsh or affect the value of the original code.

A better analogy would be if you were a musician who downloaded an album, studied the songs, then starting to play concerts using those songs and forbidding your public to make recordings.

If you've beneffited from freely obtaining the material in the first place, which right do you have to forbid others to do the same with your value-added work?

Re:Tivo-ization

[UserGoogol]

The purpose of the GPL (by which I mean RMS's purpose) is not to merely allow the original code to be used however people want, (although that's part of it) but to maximize "software freedom." (Which they define this way.) According to the philosophy of the FSF, Tivoization does not harm the original code, but it harms whoever owns a Tivo, so it must be stopped.

I don't know if I agree with the FSF's philosophy per se, but that's basically their argument.

Re:Tivo-ization

[itsdapead]

I still don't understand why Tivo-ization is viewed as "bad" from people who want to develop or used GPL software.

Well, it certainly breaks the spirit. But the bogeyman is that (as someone else has posted elsewhere on the thread) TiVO is the tip of the iceberg and, sometime in the future the big evil closed software people will collude to ensure that new PCs will only run signed code - a bit like most games consoles.

That would be poison to free software as we know it, but big players could, potentially, pay the robber barrons to sign their GPL binaries for their customers and still "satisfy" GPLv2 by putting the - unsigned and useless - source on their websites.

But if that happened, it would probably because one or two powerful multinationals had enough market dominance and political influence to foist it on the industry - the only way the GPL can fight that is if it has a large user base including powerful friends in industry. Otherwise, all it can do is add a "suicide clause" that will ensure that free software becomes extinct the millisecond the "Securing Computing For Our Children" act is passed by RentAGov, instead of lingering on in captivity for a few years.

The danger is, if that clause misfires, excludes GPL software from legitimate cryptography and security applications, prevents signing firmware that has to meet legal standards (e.g. WiFi in many countries), complicates support and warranty for commercial GPL products etc. then it could damage the commercial uptake of FOSS and, when the Trusted Computing brigade tries it on, the big customers won't be there to shout "No!".

Now, the "GPLv3 means you have to give away your private keys" scare seems to have been debunked, and the latest GPL draft has clarified that section beyond recognition - probably why Linus is sounding happier.

However, I think these scares arose because the FSF were reading the GPL3 from their point of view as part of a select minority who have both legal AND technical knowledge, defending their own baby. OTOH, Linus and co seemed to be reading it from a more cynical "What's the marginally competent and hyper-defensive Legal department at your company going to tell the Linux-skeptic Boss (who's just read this article in PHBWeekly about how using free software will let terrorists rape your kids) that this means?".

Re:Tivo-ization

[Endimyon]

Well, it could be perceived that I have that right because I have added value to the original work and made it something more valuable than the original. Or simply different. The act of adding value means that it is now identifiable as _my_ work and not the original.

By no means does this, or should it, preclude others from starting with the same source I did and either adding their own value to it or recreating what I have done. If you want the same results I got, put in the same effort and you can do it for your self.

While I realize that isn't very friendly, it may just mean that I'm a jerk and nobody will listen to my music because of that. I don't think it means that I should be forced to give away the value I added simply because somebody before me was willing to. It would be different if I could acquire all the copies of the album, lock it up, and then people would only have access to my derived work. That would be "wrong" because the general public would no longer have access to the "source" that I derived my work from.

Copyleft just seems rife with problems of this sort, and in an age where digital copies are almost effortless and nearly free it seems unnecessary. When you have an infinte supply of beer (can make zero cost copies), Free as in Beer ==> Free as in Speech.

Re:Tivo-ization

[TuringTest]

Yes, but the point is that by downloading a copyrighted work you are benefiting from the value added by the original creators, and by doing that you are not respecting their copyrights (with the justification that "it isn't theft since it's only a copy " in your example) - but then you want others to respect the value added by you by abiding to your terms (in this case, not being able to freely use your modifications to the original work).

So you're being a jerk not because you claim a right over your work, but because you're denying those very rights to the one previous to you in the chain of modifications. In my country we call that the Funnel Law.

I don't think it means that I should be forced to give away the value I added simply because somebody before me was willing to
In the case of GPL, it means that somebody before you was willing to give away the value to you *only if you agreed to do the same*. If you don't agree, you don't have any right to his added value.

That condition is not a whim, is the only mechanism known to work to protect Free as in Speech in software. Free code as in the BSD and MIT licenses is how software was created at the beginning, and it quickly derived into an incompatible set of compiting closed, proprietary systems. The don't-break-the-chain-of-added-value that GPL provides is what guarantees a pool of free software projects that is stable in time. So no, even with perfect and non-cost digital copies "Free as in Beer"!="Free as in Speech", as long as the digital content can be encripted/locked to further peer review.

Re:Tivo-ization

[wirelessbuzzers]

That condition is not a whim, is the only mechanism known to work to protect Free as in Speech in software. Free code as in the BSD and MIT licenses is how software was created at the beginning, and it quickly derived into an incompatible set of compiting closed, proprietary systems.

Yeah, it was awful. All the BSDs went away, and nobody used their code anymore.

Seriously, though, the BSD license has worked out well for many projects. I don't know who said this, but "the goal of the GPL is to make all software free; the goal of the BSD license is to make all software better."

Re:Tivo-ization

[TuringTest]

Yeah, it was awful. All the BSDs went away, and nobody used their code anymore.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was referring. How many of those projects are compiled with a BSD-licensed compiler, or use BSD-licensed version control? Those projects survive because they benefit from the comunity built around the stable GPL projects - otherwise it would have long died to the UNIX wars long ago. How many people were using OpenBSD before 1991?

Mac OS X is the best example - you only have access to the Darwin source because Apple decides to keep it public - they could take it away anytime they wanted. And you don't have access at all to the tightly integrated OS X desktop.

I don't deny that there are cases where MIT/BSD is the best license - just they're not the best when you expect to maintain in time a free, compatible core. If you don't mind your project becoming host of many independent proprietary vendors that publish modifications that you will not be able to integrate into the mainstream then yes, BSD is for you.

Re:Tivo-ization

[wirelessbuzzers]

How many of those projects are compiled with a BSD-licensed compiler, or use BSD-licensed version control? Those projects survive because they benefit from the comunity built around the stable GPL projects - otherwise it would have long died to the UNIX wars long ago.

They've certainly benefited from the GPL community, but if the GPL community hadn't existed, something else might have sprung up. It's not clear that the GPL license was what made this possible.

How many people were using OpenBSD before 1991?

None of the modern BSDs were around before 1991: before 1993 it was only UC Berkeley BSD 4.3. This was the original Free UNIX, and was released in 1986 (in its free form in 1989). Which is to say, two years before Linux, but two years after GCC. I don't know whether GCC was used to compile it, but I doubt it: changing compilers so drastically mid-version seems unlikely.

BSD 4.3 is the ancestor of many, many software systems in use today. Some of them are open source and some are not, but its impact has been incalculable. Sure, the GPL has done a lot, but saying that it's saved Free Software is a bit strong.

Re:viral

[91degrees]

The GPL doesn't explicitely state that other code must be GPL licenced. Jut that is must permit modification and redistribution (amongst other things), and doesn't restrict anything that the GPL mandates must not be restricted.

Re:Bribed.

[msuarezalvarez]

Most don't.

It may be possible, if

[g2devi]

> Essentially Torvalds replaced a clause allowing for future upgrades with nothing whatsoever,
> which means that it's going to be very, very, very hard indeed to ever upgrade the license
> of the Linux kernel, no matter how necessary.

Not necessarily. It all depends on how code in the kernel is licensed. There are several files in the kernel that are "GPL 2 or above" and several that are MIT/BSD licensed and several that are LGPL.

Currently, the kernel is "GPL 2 only" because mixing a single "GPL 2 only" file with any of the other licenses mentioned above makes the whole kernel "GPL 2 only".

The key question is: What percentage of the code is GPL 2 only? (I believe LWN.net did an analysis a few months back, but unfortunately I can't find a reference. Does anyone have one?)

If the percentage of GPL 2 only code is small (say 5%) and it's in a noncritical area or can be rewritten quickly or relicensed by the original authors (i.e. they're still around like Linus is) or replaced with other sources like the FreeBSD code or the Solaris kernel (when it goes GPLv3), then changing over to GPL v3 (or at least GPL 2 or above) should be fast.

But even if this were the case, I wouldn't expect any immediate changes. The GPL v3 needs to be out in the field and kernel developers need to feel comfortable with it and see advantages for it (e.g. Solaris-Linux code sharing) before they'd even consider a switch. That could take a few years.

Re:viral

[msuarezalvarez]

Well, in the same way that commercial licences do not require you to distribute your independently developed code, GPLed software does not require that you use it at all. If you are not willing to follow the license I choose to put on my code, then simply do not use it.

The usage of the word 'viral' in this context is nothing but fud-speak.

Mixing GPL versions...

[tjwhaynes]

The kernel is currently distributed under GPL v2. Some terms allow for it to be "v2 or later", meaning someone can use the code in a GPLv3 kernel. Software companies could also go to dual-licensing and offer it under v2 or v3. Then you could use that code in either a GPLv2 kernel or a GPLv3 kernel. You can't have a part-v3, part-v2 kernel because of license incompatibilities. Thus a kernel would be offered as either pure v2 or pure v3.

No - the kernel is currently distributed under GPL v2 BUT it is not entirely comprised of GPL v2 only code. 40% of the Linux kernel has the "or later versions" message intact and can be trivially relicensed.

How much of the Linux kernel is GPLv2?

GPL v2 and GPL v3 code can be compiled into a single entity without issue. What you can't do is take some GPL v2 code, rewrite part of it and call it GPL v3. Aggregation of code has never been an issue.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

Great News

[EHUGGZ]

The press has played up the rift between the two camps so much that it has been difficult to see how a resolution would be possible, which would be very bad for Open Source; particularly at a time when so many are dissatisfied with the status quo provided by Microsoft. It is good to hear the light at the end of the tunnel might not be a train.

Re:viral

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just as viral in that, if I write software that's tied to Windows (or some other commercial software, e.g. you write a plugin for photoshop), you have to pay extra to get a copy of Windows to use my software. Anything you write that uses my software will also require its users to get Windows. Therefore Windows is just as viral, because you have an effect propagating through the development chain in just the same was as with the GPL.

Linus!?!?!?

[Bruce Perens]

Geez, pigs will fly! Or at least they will stop being pig-headed :-)

I had to look twice to make sure this wasn't April first come early.

Bruce

Re:Linus!?!?!?

[jmv]

Actually, I've also been quite surprised to read that. On the other hand, this is hardly the first time Linus public says he's changing his mind on some issue. In this case, I guess the main reason is not that much him changing his opinion but the FSF coming up with a better (in his opinion at least) draft.

Re:Linus!?!?!?

[squiggleslash]

Or a draft that was harder to misrepresent. Everyone from Perens to Groklaw was practically screaming at Torvalds that most of his major criticisms were based upon interpretations of the license that had no basis (and many of the side complaints, that the GPLv3's tightening up on loopholes was somehow against the spirit of the GPL, were clearly bogus to anyone reading but the most foaming-at-the-mouth FSF-hater.) The FSF dumbing down some of the language has made it both easier for him to back down, and made it even more difficult to be taken seriously making those same complaints had he continued to do so.

Note that despite the headline, Torvalds isn't saying he's pleased with the most recent draft, just pleased with the changes. He describes himself as a skeptic.

Re:viral

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

No. GPL code is forward compatible if you have the and later but not backwards (see section 6). You cannot combine GPLv2 only (which a lot of kernel code is) and GPLv3. Any code that's added to the kernel has to be v2 compatible and distributed as such until all the v2 only is gone and AFAIK all of Linus code is v2 only.

Re:viral

[EsbenMoseHansen]

It doesn't really matter, because if Linus wanted to, he could start releasing changes to the Linux kernel under GPLv3 (and it specifically said GPLv3) -- so the old code would be under GPLv2 (or really, whatever version of the GPL you preferred, because unless you specifically say what version of the GPL applies, people can pick whichever version of the GPL they want. Read section 9 from the GPL for more on that) and the new Linus provided code would be GPLv3, with all the baggage that entails.

Not really, because the kernel is explicitly states it is licensed under version 2. To quote the COPYING file:

Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated.

Bits and pieces are GPLv2 or later, though

Re:viral

[ClosedSource]

Viral has nothing to do with payment. If I write software for Linux I'm just as tied to it as you would be for a Windows app.

Viral refers to GPL'd code "infecting" other people's code when it is linked in. As others have correctly noted, it's a voluntary infection (since you don't have to use GPL'd code) but it is what it is.

*Ahem*

[warrax_666]

http://zfs-on-fuse.blogspot.com/

Yes, there are some things you cannot do due to this being a user-space implementation, but for many purposes it is (will be once it reaches 1.0) sufficient.

Or later version

[gr8_phk]

If you read the new GPL 3 draft, there is a section that says something like: If you do not specify a specific version of GPL then users can imply any version ever published. I don't recall if it say "published by the FSF". Even if it does, it leaves the door open for management at the FSF to change philosophy over time resulting in bad things with future versions of the GPL. Of course people would have the option of using older versions of software if it all went closed source some day.

I don't recall if you can put a derivative work under a specific GPL version or not. I need to reread that section - if you can take GPL3 code and put it under GPL2 just because someone didn't specify a version then why have a GPL3 at all?

most GPLv2 projects?

[s-gen]

"I doubt Linux is moving off of GPLv2 anytime soon, though. I doubt most GPLv2 projects are,"
Its not a problem with most projects. Its only a problem with projects like the kernel where the "or later version" clause is missing.

Voluntary Infection

[Morosoph]

Naturally this also applies to the licence terms of closed source software. This is important, or else closed source software would become public domain when used by a licencee to make derived works.

"Infection" simply means "you have to obey the licence terms".

Re:Voluntary Infection

[ClosedSource]

"Infection" simply means "you have to obey the licence terms".

No, not really. It's the nature of the license, not the mere fact that there is one. I don't see why it's so important to you to try to equate things that clearly aren't the same.

Re:viral

[squiggleslash]

My reading of it was that a watered down version of the "optional" wording was integrated into the actual license, and this to some extent undermined both the rules against patents and the degree to which the new GPL could interoperate with other licenses, though I admit this is a skimmed reading of the license, I need to read it further.

Re:Bribed.

[warpSpeed]

If I say 'Linus' in the context of software, you immediately know I'm talking about the blanket-holding, piano-playing kid in the Peanuts cartoon.

Schroder played the piano, Linus held the blanket.

Re:So who is more powerful?

[Etyenne]

Sure, Linus has more powerful spells, being a pure class, but, IMHO, Stallman is more powerful because he usually carries the initiative and can cast Silence, which really screws up other casting types.

I thought RMS was mostly into Stinking Cloud. Now, if he could get the Silent Casting feat, I could put up with him.

Re:viral

[init100]

The only thing that was a problem is the obligation to release source code, which is probably why, like most of the people, I would opt for a BSD license over a GPL ...

Then it's funny that most of the projects aren't BSD-licensed. Oh wait, many people actually like the GPL.

Re:viral

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just that GPL is viral. BSD software can be included in or even turned into GPL software, but not the other way around. Which of course seems to be fair - to those brainwashed by the FSF.

Kender? Kobold? Kelp??

[Anonymous Coward]

> is there a race that clearly correlates with KDE?

Kender? Kobold? All I know for sure it that it'd have to start with a k. Of course, that doesn't narrow it down much, because you could end up with kelves, khumans and such...

Symmetry

[Morosoph]

No, not really. It's the nature of the license, not the mere fact that there is one. I don't see why it's so important to you to try to equate things that clearly aren't the same. There is a symmetry: closed source begets closed source, and open source begets open source.

The apparent asymmetry has nothing to do with the licence; it's related to the availability of the code, so that it is easier to create a derived work from open source code (this is, after all, the idea). However, in licencing terms, the symmetry is near-perfect.

I create a JE about this very issue not so many moons ago.

Re:Symmetry

[ClosedSource]

"There is a symmetry: closed source begets closed source, and open source begets open source."

I guess that's true as long as you exclude the BSD license from the category of "open source". A curious classification particularly since there's been plenty of BSD code in GPL'd code.

In any case, the symmetry that you propose (regardless of it's logical flaws) has nothing to do with the "viral" issue. I can still release all of my original source code even if it uses closed source libraries, but I can't keep my original source code private if I link it to GPL'd code.

We can debate the value of each approach but it's silly to try to deny the fundamental nature of the GPL and how it differs from the closed source approach. After all, it's this behavior that some call viral that gives the GPL all it's power.

OT re: yer sig

[Medievalist]

Atheism is not a religion, it is the absence of religion.

Every professed atheist I ever met refused to entertain the idea that God might be different than the precise definition of God he or she refused to believe in. This (non)belief was a core article of faith, and not available for reasoned discourse. Atheists quite often will insist noted pantheists (such as Abner Kneeland) are in fact atheists, and will not accept any proof to the contrary. If that's not religion, it's certainly got the features of a bad one, such as fanaticism and denial of reality.

Agnosticism is the absence of decisiveness.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing... no decision might be less harmful than a bad decision, eh?

Re:OT re: yer sig

[EsbenMoseHansen]

First things first... my sig was supposed to be a joke. At least I found it funny :)

Atheism is not a religion, it is the absence of religion.

Every professed atheist I ever met refused to entertain the idea that God might be different than the precise definition of God he or she refused to believe in.

Well, congratulations, you have just met one who doesn't believe in any fairy, God or other made-up beings. I don't believe in Thor, Odin, Ra, Jehova or even the flying spaghetti monster.

This (non)belief was a core article of faith, and not available for reasoned discourse. Atheists quite often will insist noted pantheists (such as Abner Kneeland) are in fact atheists, and will not accept any proof to the contrary. If that's not religion, it's certainly got the features of a bad one, such as fanaticism and denial of reality.

I am not familiar with Abner Kneeland. I do agree that that atheists trying to make a convince for "this-and-this guy was really an atheist, though he never said so" is silly. Who cares? They are invariable dead anyway. Only the realllly silly claims to religion (like saying that Einstein was Christian... which he explicitly said he was not) can be a good thing to get out of the way :)

Agnosticism is the absence of decisiveness.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing... no decision might be less harmful than a bad decision, eh?

Of course. So being agnostic about whether there is life in the universe is probably wise. Being agnostic about the e.g. protestantic three-in-one superstition is silly, in my humble opinion. But, if you want to believe that, and I am not physically threatened for making fun of that, I am not forcing anyone.

Have a nice friday :D

Re:OT re: yer sig

[sethawoolley]

Please don't pass that off as enlightenment. All the atheists I know simply don't believe in any deity. I always used to say that it's conceivable that one could come up with a definition of a deity that might exist, but that there's no reason for me to believe in it/them/whatever now or in the past. There might be a reason in the future, but at this very moment and at all moments in the past, I'm an atheist _and_ an agnostic. They are orthogonal properties, my friend.

Now that you've met an atheist that doesn't fit your preconceived notions, you'll have to change your story.

You seem to think that a requirement for atheism is the positive belief in the non-existence of all theoretically imaginable deities. Of course, that's bullshit: We all know that 'deity' will always be a subjective term, so there's no point in trying to pin an atheist on that line of thought.

I almost always refuse to discuss atheism with anybody until they start providing defining properties to their superstitions. Otherwise, it's like debating reeds in the wind.

Re:OT re: yer sig

[Medievalist]

First things first... my sig was supposed to be a joke. At least I found it funny :)

I liked it too.

Atheism is not a religion, it is the absence of religion.

Every professed atheist I ever met refused to entertain the idea that God might be different than the precise definition of God he or she refused to believe in.

Well, congratulations, you have just met one who doesn't believe in any fairy, God or other made-up beings. I don't believe in Thor, Odin, Ra, Jehova or even the flying spaghetti monster.

Hmmm... which is kind of what I was referring to. God isn't a made-up being; God is physically in the room with you right now and everything you touch is physically part of God. All those other things you mention don't really have anything to do with God... Freud would say they are just transference of childish father-worship to an imaginary super-father figure.

This (non)belief was a core article of faith, and not available for reasoned discourse. Atheists quite often will insist noted pantheists (such as Abner Kneeland) are in fact atheists, and will not accept any proof to the contrary. If that's not religion, it's certainly got the features of a bad one, such as fanaticism and denial of reality.

I am not familiar with Abner Kneeland. I do agree that that atheists trying to make a convince for "this-and-this guy was really an atheist, though he never said so" is silly. Who cares? They are invariable dead anyway. Only the realllly silly claims to religion (like saying that Einstein was Christian... which he explicitly said he was not) can be a good thing to get out of the way :)

I think we're definitely in agreement on that. Kneeland was the last man imprisoned in the USA for heresy. Wikipedia correctly identifies him as a pantheist, but atheists.org redefines him as an atheist. Us pantheists think this is claim-jumping ;) especially since Kneeland's "Philosophical Creed" is one of the most elegant statements of pantheism extant.

Einstein was also a pantheist, incidentally; but since he was a Spinoza-school pantheist he didn't think God has a personality in the sense that you and I supposedly do. Kneeland's a little more agnostic on that subject, but he certainly did not expect God to be anything like a giant bearded human in the sky.

So being agnostic about whether there is life in the universe is probably wise. Being agnostic about the e.g. protestantic three-in-one superstition is silly, in my humble opinion. But, if you want to believe that, and I am not physically threatened for making fun of that, I am not forcing anyone.

You seem very sensible to me. I think the trinity was just something St. Augustine came up with for political reasons, myself.

Have a nice friday :D

Thanks, I did! Sorry about the excessive blockquoting above... I couldn't figure out a better way.

Re:OT re: yer sig

[Medievalist]

I almost always refuse to discuss atheism with anybody until they start providing defining properties to their superstitions.

Gee, that's not a loaded statement.

Now that you've met an atheist that doesn't fit your preconceived notions, you'll have to change your story.

No evidence of that so far :) but I try to be open-minded.

Perhaps this will help you with my "superstitions"?

Mathematically (paraphrased from Spinoza):
By definition, there can be nothing greater than God.
The set of things that contains all other things is greater than any other thing.
The set of things which contains all things that ever will or have existed is greater than the set of thing that exist now.
Therefore, since nothing can be greater than God; God is all things, unbounded by time.
Therefore, to deny the existence of God is to deny all reality, all knowledge, all reasoning; these are all God.

Metaphorically (paraphrased from Zen Buddhism):
A tree is no less a tree for being part of a forest.
A forest is no less a forest for being composed of trees.
Humans decide what level of discernment to employ depending on their needs; a man who makes maps sees forests, a man who cuts firewood sees trees.
If you could discern all of what is, what isn't, what was and what will be, even for a moment, you would know God.

Get it? No ancient people in the sky with exaggerated sexual characteristics; those are just little tiny fake gods. The real God is an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-encompassing entity that we experience as participants rather than supplicants. Most atheists I've met at this point either insist that I'm an atheist too, or that my definition of God is invalid because my God physically exists (which is incompatible with their religion, er, I meant, their philosophy, which pre-defines God as imaginary).

Atheists who wish to deny the existence of a pantheistic God will probably have to start by disproving cogito ergo sum, which is pretty tricky. Confucius dodged the whole question (which was pretty smart, considering he had to compete with Taoism).

Re:OT re: yer sig

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Atheism is not a religion, it is the absence of religion.

Every professed atheist I ever met refused to entertain the idea that God might be different than the precise definition of God he or she refused to believe in. Well, congratulations, you have just met one who doesn't believe in any fairy, God or other made-up beings. I don't believe in Thor, Odin, Ra, Jehova or even the flying spaghetti monster. Hmmm... which is kind of what I was referring to. God isn't a made-up being; God is physically in the room with you right now and everything you touch is physically part of God.

Unless you redefine God to mean something other than most people, this is just a figment of your imagination. If God can do miracles (violate physical laws), then God does not exist. The rest is just semantics, you can redefine sugar to chlorine and claim it is good for bleaching, but sugar is still sugar.

All those other things you mention don't really have anything to do with God... Freud would say they are just transference of childish father-worship to an imaginary super-father figure.

God is a term for 1) being that 2) listen to prayers 3) does miracles. If you want to discuss something else, give it another name, please.

Einstein was also a pantheist, incidentally; but since he was a Spinoza-school pantheist he didn't think God has a personality in the sense that you and I supposedly do.

Ah, I see you too like the "let's redefine famous people to our cause" way of doing things. Please don't be offended, but I'm really not interested. The man is dead, let us remember him for the great things he did and wrote.

Kneeland's a little more agnostic on that subject, but he certainly did not expect God to be anything like a giant bearded human in the sky.

I am sorry to hear his fate is grim, but religion (and other religion-like thought systems) causes so much anguish and unhappiness that it is hard to focus on one particular thing. I count myself very lucky to be living in a country where the atheist, and their political and philosophical counterparts, stands comparatively strong.

So being agnostic about whether there is life in the universe is probably wise. Being agnostic about the e.g. protestantic three-in-one superstition is silly, in my humble opinion. But, if you want to believe that, and I am not physically threatened for making fun of that, I am not forcing anyone.

You seem very sensible to me. I think the trinity was just something St. Augustine came up with for political reasons, myself.

I concur.

Have a nice friday :D

Thanks, I did! Sorry about the excessive blockquoting above... I couldn't figure out a better way.

You can use the quote bottom below, and then interupt the quotes with </quote>reply..<quote>. But in the end, it is much like blockquoting, except you have to type a bit less. A nice day to you :) It is pleasent to have a reasonable person to converse with on ./, for once :)

Re:OT re: yer sig

[Medievalist]

Do you see? I have a definition of God that is shared by millions of other people. It is, in my opinion, the correct definition of God. And furthermore, I can prove that my God physically exists!

I originally said, "every professed atheist I ever met refused to entertain the idea that God might be different than the precise definition of God he or she refused to believe in." You said you are different, but now you are rejecting my definition of God because it doesn't match yours.

Most atheists are primarily anti-Christian and anti-occult. They cannot be said to have an "absence of religion" because they have a faith-based definition of God that is dictated by holy scriptures or divine revelations of some sort. They are often not even aware of the existence of science-based religions like Pantheism (or Panentheism, which is a bit different), even though there are literally many millions of us all over the world.

Anyway, your stated definition was: "God is a term for 1) being that 2) listen to prayers 3) does miracles. If you want to discuss something else, give it another name, please." That's not my definition, but in fact my God (who again is the God of millions of other people, including a great many Buddhists, Hindus and Unitarian Universalists) does those things. Every word that is spoken is heard by God, so all prayers are heard (the written prayers that are hidden deep inside Tibetan prayer wheels where no human can see them are known to God too). Every day miracles happen and all of them proceed from God because nothing that happens is not a part of God. Life itself is a miraculous anti-entropic force, taking unorganized materials and organizing them into incredibly, miraculously complex structures; love is a miracle too. The greatest miracle of all is that you and I can have this discussion - that God is so vast and complex that individual pieces of God can argue with each other over the nature of reality!

I agree with the Christians that "you cannot petition the Lord with prayer" - praying for something won't change physics, nor will God change his plans because you prayed for something. Prayer just makes you feel better. That's one of the few things the Pope and I agree on, theologically.

In the USA, where I live, the Judeo-Christian tradition can claim Atheism as a bastard stepchild in some ways. Just as Satanism is delimited by the Bible and the Talmud, so is mainstream atheism... the articles of faith are the same as Catholicism, just with a "not" prepended. If I try to explain the nature of God to local atheists, the discussion proceeds exactly along the lines you and I have just gone down (if the atheist is at all intelligent - the dumb ones just insist I'm an atheist too). Essentially, my God is not permitted to be discussed, because he's demonstrably real; only straw-man Gods can be mentioned because they are so easily refuted.

Incidentally, you've accused me of "redefining people" because I said Einstein was a Spinoza-style pantheist - but I was just repeating what Einstein himself said! "I believe in Spinoza's god who reveals Himself in orderly harmony that exists, not a God who concerns Himself with fates and actions of human beings." Albert Einstein, New York Times 1929-04-25. Who is "redefining" anything here? Not me! Still, you are right that dead people's beliefs really shouldn't enter into our discussion, and I'm not really a Spinoza monadist myself, so I will stop talking about Albert. :)

Re:OT re: yer sig

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Do you see? I have a definition of God that is shared by millions of other people. It is, in my opinion, the correct definition of God. And furthermore, I can prove that my God physically exists!

This is just sematics. It annoys me when people hijack words, but for the sake of the argument.... define your God then, and let's be done with this. From reading below, I should ask you to define miracle too, which I guess you use in other meaning than "divine intervention by a god in the universe by which the ordinary course and operation of Nature is overruled, suspended, or modified" to quote wikipedia. For now, I will assume the usual definition.

I originally said, "every professed atheist I ever met refused to entertain the idea that God might be different than the precise definition of God he or she refused to believe in." You said you are different, but now you are rejecting my definition of God because it doesn't match yours.

I am not rejecting the idea that we might consider other concepts, but you are just hijacking a word. But as I said, it matters little, let's have a definition. You are still only talking sematics, and no substance.

Most atheists are primarily anti-Christian and anti-occult. They cannot be said to have an "absence of religion" because they have a faith-based definition of God that is dictated by holy scriptures or divine revelations of some sort. They are often not even aware of the existence of science-based religions like Pantheism (or Panentheism, which is a bit different), even though there are literally many millions of us all over the world.

Generally, we lump all the superstitious in one clump. I am not anti-Christian as such, am I anti-superstitious. The more carefully of us puts the truly "we-define-gods-as-the-wonderfull-ness-in-life-and -say-we-believe-in-this-whatever-that-is-suppose-t o-mean" (e.g, Dawkins carefully does this), but as I said, the sematic game bores me.

Anyway, your stated definition was: "God is a term for 1) being that 2) listen to prayers 3) does miracles. If you want to discuss something else, give it another name, please." That's not my definition, but in fact my God (who again is the God of millions of other people, including a great many Buddhists, Hindus and Unitarian Universalists) does those things.

Lol, first you spend ages talking sematics, and then you agree to my definition? I don't care how many deluded people there are, they are still deluded :)

Every word that is spoken is heard by God, so all prayers are heard (the written prayers that are hidden deep inside Tibetan prayer wheels where no human can see them are known to God too). Every day miracles happen and all of them proceed from God because nothing that happens is not a part of God. Life itself is a miraculous anti-entropic force, taking unorganized materials and organizing them into incredibly, miraculously complex structures; love is a miracle too. The greatest miracle of all is that you and I can have this discussion - that God is so vast and complex that individual pieces of God can argue with each other over the nature of reality!

Life is not a miracle, it is well within the law of physics. Life is not anti-entropic, it just moves order, creating more disorder in the process.Much like smelting metals, e.g. Love is hardly a miracle, just a bunch of chemicals and what-have-you --- wonderful as it is, it is hard physics-defying. The last bit is just non-sense, as is the first bit. What exacty do you mean when you say "heard"? Is there a ear and a brain somewhere? A computer and a microphone?

I agree with the Christians that "you cannot petition the Lord with prayer" - praying for something won't change physics, nor will God change his plans because you prayed for something. Prayer just makes you feel better. That's one of

Re:OT re: yer sig

[sethawoolley]

Sounds like you've just discovered Spinoza.

The Spinozan argument is a reformulation of the ontological argument.

Your ontological argument is simply circular logic and fails for a similar reason to what I provided in my first post: you can't "define" a word as something that must exist, either directly or indirectly. Existence is not a predicable argument -- existence is a part of the a posteriori, not the a priori. You can't even debate existence without experience of existence.

I'm going to call your defined god "hfidkcle". As it's about as meaningful as a random string of characters, from now on. To understand better, it's like saying, "my god is myself, you can't be an atheist because you must believe I exist, for you're talking to me!"

No, that doesn't make me a theist. You simply can't redefine your way into winning the argument. Remember, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any gods, even a pantheistic god, because I don't believe in all things just because you slapped a definition on them.

Moreover, it's not a preconceived notion of god that people expect gods to be metaphysical. It's a common property for 99.99% of the world. Again, you can't redefine words. If we use your terms, then we're speaking a language other than English. I'd be a theist in your language, but not mine, nor the rest of the world's.

It's like saying you can redefine a word to mean something it was never intended to refer to. It's really post-conceived that you changed the definition to be a non-metaphysical god. Look at one of the arguments Nietzsche used to dismiss gods -- if we could see their actions then their behavior is no longer metaphysical, but physical, and then part of the scientific realm, and thus non-evidence becomes a valid reason for dismissing any metaphysical/physical hybrid god. Hence many intellectual god-lovers tend to put him into the completely metaphysical realm, or the physical realm only in a non-scientific way (since we can't test gods).

In discussions past, I typically just change the Spinozan god "hfidkcle" to be "universe". Then if they ask if I believe the universe exists, I say yes. But that doesn't mean I believe in "hfidkcle" in any meaningful fashion. It doesn't actually change my behavior. I merely act as if the universe exists... STILL. So it's really a pointless argument to fall in line with the old Spinozan antinomy.

Re:OT re: yer sig

[Medievalist]

You haven't defined your God. If you did, it would be easily refuted; otherwise it is refuted by default. That is always the way.

I've defined God several times now, you are just refusing to acknowledge it. I am a pantheist, one of a huge number of pantheists, my philosophy is extensively documented in many languages, it's in every dictionary and encyclopedia, and although there are minor differences in "flavor" between the various kinds of pantheist we all agree on who God is.

My definition of God has existed for over 2000 years, so you can't honestly say I'm "hijacking a word". You're dodging. Or trolling.

What, precisely, do you not understand about my definition of God? Have you read Wikipedia's entry on Pantheism? Will you accept any of these? If so, which one?

Re:OT re: yer sig

[EsbenMoseHansen]

You haven't defined your God. If you did, it would be easily refuted; otherwise it is refuted by default. That is always the way.

I've defined God several times now, you are just refusing to acknowledge it. I am a pantheist, one of a huge number of pantheists, my philosophy is extensively documented in many languages, it's in every dictionary and encyclopedia, and although there are minor differences in "flavor" between the various kinds of pantheist we all agree on who God is.

You have said you are a pantheist, not defined God. Alright, going from the wikipedia definition then God is simply another name for universe --- how uninteresting. The difference practical difference between that and an atheist must be hair-thin, if there is any: No scripture, no miracles (in the physics-defying sense), no inherit ethics. Terry Pratchett once wrote something like "Everything and nothing; always and never: it's almost the same. " There are wisdom in those words.

My definition of God has existed for over 2000 years, so you can't honestly say I'm "hijacking a word". You're dodging. Or trolling.

How nice, but very common for people unable or unwilling to define what they mean. No, I'm not trolling, but since you choose to use a word to mean something else than most, you need to make that explicit rather than just assume that everyone cares or knows about some obscure worldview. You might think that it is all the other ones that are hijacking the word, or that it has a double meaning, but that doesn't really change anything. This is very similar to the "hacker" problem so commonly discussed here on /.

What, precisely, do you not understand about my definition of God? Have you read Wikipedia's entry on Pantheism? Will you accept any of these? If so, which one?

From a quick skim, the "definition" on wikipedia is just made another name for the universe. Do you remember that I don't care for discussing sematics?

You yourself have not offered a definition, so I have to guess that that is what you mean. If this is wrong, the blame is entirely yours.

Re:OT re: yer sig

[Medievalist]

I think you understood the definition reasonably well. God is indeed the universe. God is also everything that is not described by the word "Universe". God is not restricted by time or space, those things are just parts of God. God is the all-powerful, all-encompassing, all-knowing all. If your definition of the universe, or of God, has any exclusions, that's not the God I'm talking about. God is all.

Pantheism has existed in many forms for over 2000 years. We don't know when the Chandogya Unpanishad was written, but it is at least that old and perhaps much older. Accusing me of playing semantics, of redefining words, is not useful. I'm using the same definition that various religions in China and India have been continuously using since at least 8 BC. It's a very popular definition among scientists who are religious, because it does not contradict observable phenomena. For example, the problem of evil does not exist for pantheists.

I think you might have strong religious beliefs, like every other atheist I've ever met. Perhaps to you, God MUST be an anthropomorphic phantasm - this may be an article of faith to you, just as it is to Christians and Muslims. Are you willing to consider other ideas? If the nature of your non-existent God is not open to debate, that's a religious position, not an open-minded or scientific position.

If you cannot consider any other form of God, then you do not have an "absence of religion" - far from it. How one defines God is the essence of one's religion. It is the entire point of theology; to know God. I'm not trying to insult you, here, I am quite willing to respect any belief system that doesn't go around murdering people and destroying things in the name of God. Many people who attend my church call themselves atheists and also call themselves members of the UU religion. Many people consider Jains and Buddhists to be atheists. So-called "elite" taoists consider themselves to be religious atheists and are very proud of this.

I'm very willing to consider that a person might have a form of atheism that is not religious, but I don't think I've met any yet. All the forms of atheism that I've encountered are centered around unproveable premises, a faith unsupported by objective evidence.

If you really want to know more about pantheism (I'm actually more interested in discussing atheism, because it is much more puzzling to me; pantheism seems totally self-evident and obviously correct) I recommend this entry in the Stanford encylopedia of philosophy. I just read it, and although it's long and might bore you I thought it did a good job of representing Schopenhauer's dismissal of pantheism as a religion (very similar to your "semantic" objections) - and it's certainly less boring than reading Schopenhauer! :P It's got some discussion of the really hard problems of pantheist theology too, the places where we all disagree with each other (sort of like how all the Christian sects constantly squabble over things nobody else really cares about).

Some people say pantheism and atheism are the same thing; sort of like in "The Incredibles" when the guy says "when everybody is special, nobody is." I guess that's Schopenhauer's argument in a nutshell - if everything is divine, nothing is. I disagree, and I think you might also.

I just referenced Schopenhauer and Disney in the same post. I'm not sure if that's good or bad...

Re:OT re: yer sig

[Medievalist]

Well, actually I disagree very slightly with Spinoza, although I enormously respect his work. I find Leibnitz's views on the subject to be very interesting, too, even though Voltaire skewered him pretty thoroughly. I don't think Descartes' ontological proof is equivalent to Spinoza, either, but I can see some similarity and I suppose there's more than one ontological proof. You can consider me "spinoza-ist" if you like, the differences are pretty abstract and unlikely to matter to anyone but a "small vehicle" Buddhist.

When you wrote "I'd be a theist in your language, but not mine, nor the rest of the world's" you came within a hairbreadth of something that I consider a fundamental truth: all existence is subjective. No human or human-equivalent intelligence can truly have an objective experience of anything, or a truly objective viewpoint, because the meat engine our consciousness rides filters our perceptions and restricts our comprehension. Voltaire's Candide pretty effectively destroys Leibnitz's "best of all possible worlds" by simply introducing subjective experience to Leibnitz's airy theorizing.

You are a theist in my language. And you are religious, too, although certainly not deist. In my language. And millions of other people's languages. I'm an atheist to some people, although frankly (I hope you won't be offended) I find that viewpoint insulting. I'm willing to bet you find the idea that you might be a theist equally insulting, even though it is subjectively true to me and I'm really not trying to insult anyone. My best friend has a viewpoint that I think is very similar to yours.

And I must disagree with you that "the rest of the world" shares your language of God - that's clearly not true, what with millions of pantheists joining me in disagreement (I do go to church, you know) but I will agree that the argument is pointless from your point of view. Um, the argument of whether you are a theist or not, that is - it's a subjective value judgment, and each of us is assigning you the value we consider "better".

Now consider from my point of view. Atheism is pointless from where I live, firmly grounded in reality. I can not escape God even if I want to, I cannot deny the reality of God even by committing suicide. God is physically here, and undeniable, and every atheist I see preaching is clearly an anti-deist - which is a religious belief, from my viewpoint, since it's a belief based entirely on faith and contradicts observable reality.

A lot of atheists go around proclaiming that "religion is backward and stupid and hurts people and is scientifically hogwash". Then, when someone presents them with a religion that clearly does not have those characteristics, a set of religious beliefs that has existed for thousands of years, those same atheists say "well, you are cheating and redefining words". The idea that they might have created a false categorization that only applies to some religious beliefs is inconceivable to these people, and they will not consider it. And to most of the world (stealing your generalization there), when you have a belief that is unsupported by evidence, that is a religion if not simply insanity. And thus, these people do not have "an absence of religion" (the phrase that originally caused me to hijack this thread) but rather a deep, strong and abiding faith in their dogma.

It seems to me that anyone who truly had an absence of religion would be what we call an agnostic; a person who has no definition of God. Isn't defining God the very heart of every religion? One's definition of God is what determines one's relationship with God, and with God's will... only agnostics are leaving these things up in the air.

Can you disagree without making a blanket statement of "everything you know is wrong and your language is stupid?" That doesn't seem like a very convincing argument to me.

Re:OT re: yer sig

[EsbenMoseHansen]

I think you understood the definition reasonably well. God is indeed the universe.

So an synonym. Saying universe is clearer, and universally (hah!) understood.

God is also everything that is not described by the word "Universe".

Since universe is everything, that is an empty set.

God is not restricted by time or space, those things are just parts of God. God is the all-powerful, all-encompassing, all-knowing all. If your definition of the universe, or of God, has any exclusions, that's not the God I'm talking about. God is all.

(The universe being) all-powerful and all-knowing is logically inconsistent. So that is obviously wrong.

A
Pantheism has existed in many forms for over 2000 years. We don't know when the Chandogya Unpanishad was written, but it is at least that old and perhaps much older. Accusing me of playing semantics, of redefining words, is not useful. I'm using the same definition that various religions in China and India have been continuously using since at least 8 BC. It's a very popular definition among scientists who are religious, because it does not contradict observable phenomena. For example, the problem of evil does not exist for pantheists.

Obviously, the universe is not evil nor good (or logically self-conflicting, for that matter).

I think you might have strong religious beliefs, like every other atheist I've ever met. Perhaps to you, God MUST be an anthropomorphic phantasm - this may be an article of faith to you, just as it is to Christians and Muslims. Are you willing to consider other ideas? If the nature of your non-existent God is not open to debate, that's a religious position, not an open-minded or scientific position.

I have never said so, nor do I believe that. I said that god, as defined commonly defined, is such a fantasy. That you want to use the word as a synonym for a sort of sentient, logically inconsistent universe is not my problem. Hate to tell you less, but nothing suggest that the universe is sentient as such.

If you cannot consider any other form of God, then you do not have an "absence of religion" - far from it.

As I've said many times already: I can consider anything... more than you probably, since my training lies that way. I only said that it is better to say what you mean clearly and unambigiously if possible. If you are in love with the word "god" and want to use it for whatever you should qualify this so that people know what you're talking about. I don't believe this is very difficult to understand, but if it is still not clear, let it lie, since it is just sematics and not very important.

How one defines God is the essence of one's religion. It is the entire point of theology; to know God. I'm not trying to insult you, here, I am quite willing to respect any belief system that doesn't go around murdering people and destroying things in the name of God. Many people who attend my church call themselves atheists and also call themselves members of the UU religion. Many people consider Jains and Buddhists to be atheists. So-called "elite" taoists consider themselves to be religious atheists and are very proud of this.

Since I am not a religious man, I wouldn't know about what is important for a proper delusion of the religious persuasion.

I'm very willing to consider that a person might have a form of atheism that is not religious, but I don't think I've met any yet. All the forms of atheism that I've encountered are centered around unproveable premises, a faith unsupported by objective evidence.

I have unreasonable faith in many things (such as my wife, the basic goodness in most people etc), but I know very well how baseless this faith is. It is not very comparabl

Re:OT re: yer sig

[Medievalist]

Well, it looks like we've reached an impasse. I'll recap.

You say "atheism is the absence of religion" (as part of the setup for a funny tag, which I do appreciate).

I say "All the atheists I've met practice atheism as a religion" (because I find their non-negotiable base axioms to be indistinguishable from any other religious faith).

You say "Well that does not apply to me and I will accept no argument otherwise" (because you axiomatically define yourself as nonreligious).

I say "You just proved my point" (true given my axioms, false under yours).

You say "That's because you are a deluded, gullible wishful thinker" (true given your axioms, false given mine).

I think now is where we both say, "OK, you're wrong, but I hope that works out for you since you seem like an otherwise reasonable guy". :)

If we cannot accept each other's base axioms we cannot construct a mutually acceptable proof.

Incidentally, Buddhism and pantheism are extremely compatible.

Re:OT re: yer sig

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Well, it looks like we've reached an impasse. I'll recap.

You say "atheism is the absence of religion" (as part of the setup for a funny tag, which I do appreciate). That is sort of the definition, yes.

I say "All the atheists I've met practice atheism as a religion" (because I find their non-negotiable base axioms to be indistinguishable from any other religious faith).

You do? Mostly, you quibbled over the meaning of the word "god" (are the fairies blue or red?). There is no axiom in atheism, just the basic conclusion that a prayeraccepting, (miraculously) intervening and/or creating god is (very) unlikely. If you go around calling other peoples conclusions for axioms (which is anything but a conclusion, you just muddle the waters.

You say "Well that does not apply to me and I will accept no argument otherwise" (because you axiomatically define yourself as nonreligious).

As I recall, I easily dissected and removed all your "arguments" (which basically said that "since there is no universally agreed definition of God, and since atheist prefer to label the more common with that name, atheists are religious."

I say "You just proved my point" (true given my axioms, false under yours).

You proved nothing but your preconception led you to think so. From the very beginning, you had your conclusion ready. Nothing I said or did could change that, sadly.

I think now is where we both say, "OK, you're wrong, but I hope that works out for you since you seem like an otherwise reasonable guy". :)

Don't let the facts disturb your viewpoints, to be sure.

If we cannot accept each other's base axioms we cannot construct a mutually acceptable proof.

I used no axioms. You just continually claimed I did. Not quite the same :)

As for what is compatible... religious people tends to be very incompatible, no matter what strain they are brought up with. Thus, the hindus and the muslims are continually fighting in India. I suspect that if 2 people of the same strain were to live on the island, they would schism and end up killing one another.

Still, I agree that I can do no more here. I do hope someday you will cast off the fetters of religion. In any case, I hope you have a good life with love and happiness :)

Re:Bribed.

[try_anything]

I got into software well after Linux and Linus were famous, and RMS has always seemed like a bigger luminary than Linus Torvalds. I'm not a Free Software zealot. I write commercial software, and I'm very grateful for all the open-source code I use under commercial-friendly licenses. However, it can't be denied that RMS is in a class above Linus.

In the history books, Linus will go down as a hero. RMS will go down as a visionary. There's a big difference. A hero performs great deeds and proves that what was once thought impossible is possible. A visionary molds the ideas by which the next generation of heroes sees the world and chooses great deeds to accomplish. Linus is, by temperment, not a revolutionary guy. Yet he adopted a revolutionary banner (the GPL) and applied his talent to a revolutionary deed. RMS' revolution directed Linus' heroism. History is crawling with successful heroes, but their actions are guided by a relatively small number of successful visionaries.

GPL Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

but will the GPLv3 be compatible with the Web 2.0?

bacterial

[mrbluze]

Now, this assumes that Linus wants GPLv3, which so far he does not. ... But I suspect that Linus would reject any such patches for now, and if one was snuck in, it would probably be removed if found later.

Perhaps there are much deeper things at work here than honest intellectual and simple strategic arguments. Maybe things like DRM and closed box products are actually in the bloodthirsty minds of major companies which support Linux (and Linus, and hundreds of contributors) politically and financially, such as IBM. It's quite possible that they are simply supporting open source in the short to medium term for strategic gain only, and not at all out of any philanthropic or idealistic urge - shock horror!

My gut feeling is the FSF is morally in the right with GPLv3 and have the end user's and programmer's interests placed first. The conflict is arising because the FSF is going against big money. Question is, now that the size of things has increased so much, is the bravery of people such as Linus and others big enough to take on the next confrontation?

Stallman vs Linus

[dmoen]

Stallman is standing up for his ideals. Linus has no ideals whatsoever, he just want things to work, and doesn't give a rat ass about the so called ideals. That's right.

In other words, Stallman is a visionary. Linus is just a great engineer. It's true that Stallman is a visionary, but Linus is not a great engineer.
The early versions of Linux, that contained a lot of Linus's code, were absolute crap.
Sure, Linus can write code, but he can't engineer his way out of a wet paper bag.
But he's a great manager, and Linux succeeded due to Linus's leadership abilities,
not due to his engineering abilities.

Stallman, on the other hand, is a great engineer.
Emacs and GCC are testiments to this fact.
But Stallman is a lousy manager, based on what I've read of the history of the Emacs project.

Doug Moen

Copyleft

[Morosoph]

You're right that I should have said copylefted software instead of open source; I suppose that I was distracted by the closed_source/open_source dichotomy, and, of course, your pseudonym.

Closed source libraries are in general licenced under the closed-source equivelent of the Lesser GPL (formerly Library GPL), or LGPL for short. Such a licence explicitally allows linking, and the publishing of your work as you choose.

However, if you have access to the innards of closed source software, and derive an involved derived work, you'll found yourself bound not only with various non-disclosure agreements, but you will find yourself unable to release your work in useable form, even if the company allow you to publish the diffs (perhaps subject to variable-name obfuscation).

Most library code that is *GPLed is in fact LGPLed, so it's fair to compare the GPLed library code with various closed-source libraries that do in fact come with funny licence conditions. Vis:

3. ADDITIONAL LICENSING REQUIREMENTS AND/OR USE RIGHTS.

. . .

iii. Distribution Restrictions. You may not

• alter any copyright, trademark or patent notice in the Distributable Code;
• use Microsoft's trademarks in your programs' names or in a way that suggests your programs come from or are endorsed by Microsoft;
• distribute Distributable Code, other than code listed in OTHER-DIST.TXT files, to run on a platform other than the Windows platform;
• include Distributable Code in malicious, deceptive or unlawful programs; or
• modify or distribute the source code of any Distributable Code so that any part of it becomes subject to an Excluded License. An Excluded License is one that requires, as a condition of use, modification or distribution, that
• the code be disclosed or distributed in source code form; or
• others have the right to modify it.

Closed source licencing mirrors copyleft licencing very closely, when you compare like with like. There is a massive difference in the field, but that is the difference of availability. Locking code open might mirror locking code closed, but the effect of doing so is to positively enables the creation of derived work. This, however, is simply an efficiency of a different licencing model; it does not follow from the formal properties of the licence, rather, it follows from the source being available for derived works to be made from it.

Re:Copyleft

[ClosedSource]

Nothing you quote in the MS license restricts you from releasing your own code under any license you choose, unless of course, the license you want to use requires that MS's source code is released as well. That would be giving away something you don't own.

Re:Copyleft

[Morosoph]

Nothing you quote in the MS license restricts you from releasing your own code under any license you choose, unless of course, the license you want to use requires that MS's source code is released as well. That would be giving away something you don't own. True, but it does show the viral nature of proprietry software very well, doesn't it? Exclusive ownership perpetuates just as copyleft does. And yes, I agree, this is just a matter of respecting the terms of the licence under which you're using the software. It isn't especially sinister.

I owe you an apology, though; when I read about this a few months ago, I took it as saying something more extreme. My mistake for remembering the reporting and not checking the licence then. I skimmed it now, and seeing that the gist was compatible with what I remember, posted it. As it stands, it simply reinforces the GPL from the other side. You can't find ICC-compiled kernels for much the same reason, although you can compile your own.

Although the quote doesn't make the point of unreasonableness that I wanted to make, it does reinforce my main point about symmetry, and that is sufficient for my argument.

Re:viral

[Mr2001]

And this is viral how? It's viral in the sense that it becomes impractical to release your own software for free when you have to pay for the libraries, particularly if you have to pay a royalty for each copy you ship. Unless you have piles of cash to burn, using a commercially-licensed library in your software forces you to release that software under a commercial license in order to get the money to pay for the library.

When RMS and Linus are aligned ...

[porky_pig_jr]

and moon in the Saggitarius, keep your asshole tight.

Re:Bribed.

[dbIII]

Who's bigger and more well-known amongst todays geeks: Stallman on Linus?

Of course we've all hurd of RMS.

Re:So who is more powerful?

[dbIII]

I suspect Linus might object to his characterization as a Gnome...is there a race that clearly correlates with KDE?

Trolls. The qt toolkit is written by them.

Re:Bribed.

[salimma]

Since GPLv3 is more relaxed in interoperability requirement with other licenses than GPLv2, forking a GPLv2 project will involve rewriting all the GPLv2 code whose copyright owners refuse to move. Sounds painful.

The reverse is more likely: if a project decides to move to GPLv3, presumably some die-hard GPLv2ists could continue maintaining the present version. Though the purpose of doing this is unclear.

Re:viral

[ClosedSource]

That may explain how closed source could be expensive, it doesn't explain how it is viral.

Re:viral

[Mr2001]

First, we're talking about commercial licenses, not just "closed source".

Second, like I said, it's viral in that if you use a commercially-licensed library in your own software (particularly one that charges a per-unit-shipped royalty), you have to release your software under a commercial license as well. Otherwise you're paying those royalties out of your own pocket, and few people can afford to do that.

It's not exactly the same as the GPL situation: you don't have to use exactly the same license, and you're forced into it not by a contract but by financial necessity. But it's still viral.

Re:viral

[ClosedSource]

"Second, like I said, it's viral in that if you use a commercially-licensed library in your own software (particularly one that charges a per-unit-shipped royalty), you have to release your software under a commercial license as well."

You don't have to use a commercial license for your own code and it's not even a financial problem except in those rather rare cases where you pay a per-unit royalty.

In any case, I don't agree that mere existance of incentives puts commerical projects in the viral category. The lack of choice is the key characteristic.

Re:viral

[Mr2001]

In any case, I don't agree that mere existance of incentives puts commerical projects in the viral category. The lack of choice is the key characteristic. Well, if you're not going to consider financial consequences, why consider legal ones? After all, you still have the choice to take GPL'd software and sell it as your own work, without giving away source code or granting your end users any rights. There are many examples of companies doing just that.

It'd be illegal, and you'd likely suffer the consequences when you eventually got caught, but nothing prevents you from making that choice except your own desire to avoid breaking the law - just like nothing prevents you from paying $2500 for a library and then giving your software away for free, except your own desire to avoid spending $2500 with no way to get it back.

Can we therefore conclude that the GPL isn't viral either?

Re:viral

[ClosedSource]

We're going around in circles. You're just making the same argument in a slightly different form. If financial considerations are equivalent or just as powerful as legal ones, than I suggest dropping the GPL in favor of a financial way of promoting F/OSS.

Honestly, you're fucked here

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't trust a change of license for your work, then you're buggered. Really. Why? Because at some point in time your code will become public domain. If we're on the GPLv128 by then, someone can take your code and put that license on it.

So what if that isn't what you want? You've lost copyright.

So if you think trusting a license not to change in a way you don't like is insane, release your work PD. It's the only license that will not change.

NOTE: your descendants will inherit and if they like GPLv4 or later then they can relicense your code, so I'd disinherit them too...

I don't know any other way of saying it

[ClosedSource]

"True, but it does show the viral nature of proprietry software very well, doesn't it?

No. The proprietary license restricts only the code in the library, not the code you build on it. In the case of the GPL, the code you add gets "infected" too. It's a philosphy that says "In exchange for incorporating my code in your application I get to control the licensing of your code even though I didn't contribute anything to that part of your application." Nobody is forced to accept those terms, but what's the point in denying their essential nature?

Re:I don't know any other way of saying it

[Morosoph]

Only if the library is GPL. Most *GPLed libraries are LGPLed, where there is no "infection". I do see your point when it comes to GPLed libraries, of which there are a few, but the likes of readline can be easily recreated by other programmers. GPLing libraries tends to yield software of lowish "genetic fitness" IFAICT, in that they don't get developed very fast; certainly there is "infection", but it not particularly effective, unless you're referring to "growing" an LGPLed library.

Practically speaking, GPLed code is finished code; libraries, by and large, are not.

Re:I don't know any other way of saying it

[ClosedSource]

I see what you're saying, but to the extent the GPLed code is finished code, it's also not very interesting to incorporate into something else. When that is the case no "infection" is involved because there's no new code to infect. It's only when you wish to substantially add functionality to an existing GPL'd work does the issue come up.

Absolutely

[Morosoph]

The GPL, in practice is used as a means to say two things: Don't steal my code outright, and if you want to contribute, these are the terms (also, we're now in it together).

It's this alignment of purpose that is the most potent side of the GPL, and this is why so many are miffed at Novell's exclusivity deal.