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FSF Releases Fourth and Final Draft of GPLv3
An anonymous reader writes "The most notable changes found in this latest draft include making GPLv3 compatible with version 2.0 of the Apache license, ensuring that distributors who make discriminatory patent deals after March 28 may not convey software under GPLv3, adding terms to clarify how users can contract for private modification of free software or for a data center to run it for them, and replacing the previous reference to a U.S. consumer protection statute with explicit criteria for greater clarity outside the United States.
The draft also does not prohibit Novell from distributing software under GPLv3 'because the patent protection they arranged with Microsoft last November can be turned against Microsoft to the community's benefit,' FSF executive director Peter Brown said."
GPLv3 is a key event in Microsoft's war to divide and conquer the Free Software / Open Source community. Most of the Linux industry seems to be betting on GPLv3 to put an end to Microsoft's patent claims. My question is simply: is Microsoft sitting around scratching its head, or has it already started on the next level of play...? Are we going to see those 235 patents handed over to the community, or are we instead going to see "IP Bridges" as the next great Product to come out of Redmond?
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I am not clear what they are talking about, being able to turn these protections around to the FOSS movement's advantage? Frankly, so long as OpenOffice is at risk, I would say there is still quite a bit of risk, since most end users are more concerned with being able to use office/e-mail then about network backends (such as Novell netware).
Can anyone give some clarification?
More politics.. Who really need it? Really don't people have anything better to to? Like, ACTUALLY writtig software?
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
The patent thing is going to backfire big time. It's going to scare away businesses who would either stand to lose huge amounts of money or because they're unsure about whether it would invalidate patents they already have (what if the software is designed specifically to perform a piece of CAM in a way that's patented? Would that patent become invalid because of this licence? Would patented business practices that use OSS be threatened? Why risk losing millions in licence fees when you could spend a few hundred thousand and fit your systems with software you know doesn't rob you these rights?
For a licence that was supposed to be simple and easy to understand, section 11 makes for a hard read, even for geeks and I imagine lawyers will love the the potential vague nature of those terms. God knows what a layperson would think when reading it.
Which, like that of Stevens, cost a lot without exactly going anywhere useful, no doubt.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
What is really, really sad is when people deliberately (or ignorantly) confuse freedom to make life better with freedom to make it worse.
Freedom of expression does not extend to harassment of minorities.
Freedom of movement does not extend to other people's bathrooms.
Freedom of software does not extend to patent ambushes.
Microsoft is cynically exploiting fear of patent infringement to ambush the work done by millions. This is no "pissing war", it is a fight for survival, at least a fight for survival according to the old rules. If Microsoft were respecting the free software community, or even just ignoring it, that'd be fine. But what it's doing is saying, "nice business you have here, Guv, pity you've gone and installed that free stuff everywhere, cause it infringes on our [unspecified] patents, and it'd be a real shame to see a lawsuit happen here..."
Linux is now mainstream, and Microsoft wants to own it. That is what is going on here.
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"Fiasco"?
"Infecting patent deals"?
Who's bitch are you, exactly?
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GPLv3 to call a fiasco, it's neglecting what true fiasco really means - e.g. the US invasion in Iraq is a fiasco, it gets worse everyday, and the one responsible is a dumb ass.
/. and I'm fine with AC
Now, GPLv3 is exactly the opposite, the first draft was reviewed, and heavily critized, and the critics was HEARD and actually CONSIDERED. This is HOW YOU AVOID a fiasco, are you listening?
This process is what a consensus is made of, how a process would applied in other areas of social life like politics would be a true remedy. The fact GPL goes into v3 is that it is evolutionary, and alive.
I use (Free)BSD a lot, and I like its license, but it has no potential to change, it's set, because it gives the most freedom. GPL limits the freedom by forcing you to act alike as you received the freedom, pass-it-on - nice too, and I find it even more nice to see such vivid interest in v3 of GPL, going into the details where freedom is limited and how and how to prevent within the license, this license lives from the update, from the learning, from the input of many.
Wake up!
PS: I'm AC because I hardly post on
I heard Microsoft is looking for someone to sort out their patent archive... 235 are missing, you see...
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
I had a look. The controversial anti-DRM clause seems to be in part #3 of the license:
No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures.
When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technical measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technical measures.
The definition of "convey":
To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies, excluding sublicensing. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying.
There are more than two choices you know...
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
One practical issue: it will be nice if somebody (Debian?) could write a script that makes it easy to scan source hierarchies for GPLv2 comments so they can be replaced consistently with GPLv3. The last time the FSF changed its address, it was a pain to check and change all the boilerplates.
BSD is amphetamine, giving you instant gratification. GPL is vegetables, tiresome to eat, but provides benefit into the future.
Eat your veggies.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
The goal of the GPL, the GNU project, and the FSF has always been software freedom, first and foremost. If a business finds no value in making changes to the way they do things to reap the benefits that Free Software brings, then they are free to not use any GPL'ed software. It's as simple as that.
That said, most of the big businesses currently interested in Free Software, including some which have HUGE patent stores, like IBM have actually participated in the drafting of the GPLv3.
You're obviously trolling but I'll bite. The FSF is now more relevant than ever. Version 3 of the GPL is just trying to close loopholes. If you don't like it, don't use it.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
What is to say the FSF will not add other restrictions on the software you use?
They cannot retroactively add restrictions on their software. It is released under the license it is released under. On the other hand, the usual "GPL v2 or later" wording of the license allows you to adopt later changes should you wish to.
In this case it has mutated to infect unrelated areas of business after entering the host.
No one who is currently using GPLv2 software will see this mutation that you speak of - unless they choose to. People who start to use GPLv3 software will have it marked as GPLv3 when they introduce it so the mutation effect seems somewhat fictional.
sigs are hazardous to your health
Except when it isn't. The problem with freedom is it's an inane word with very little meaning. Ultimately we look to it as an ideal rather than as a goal, because it's very difficult to give everyone absolute freedom when one person can use their's to oppress another, removing the freedom from that second group. Perhaps in a hundred years, when we all have virtual reality, we can have "absolute freedom" within that, with everyone free to do whatever they want to their own words without impacting on anyone else's, but until then others have the right to consider curtailing your freedom the moment your actions involve anyone else.
You probably haven't been reading much from those criticizing the use of patents within the community. The reality is that we know full well that it's very, very, likely Linux and other GNU components violate numerous Microsoft patents. We know that it's unfair, because those violations for the most part cover independently invented methods, or code implemented for the purpose of interoperability. Which is why we're (the Free Software community) looking for ways to neutralize deals like Novell's. It's not the notion that Microsoft has patents covering GNU/Linux that bothers us, it's the idea that Microsoft should be allowed to enforce them.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
No.
The BSD is nice and simple, but it's only of use if you're happy to basically work for free for some random corporation.
Look at NetBSD for example. It's stagnated to the point of irrelevance, while Linux keeps getting more and more polished and more and more popular.
If anything, the BSD will the one that will die, when people realize that corporations have no concept of playing nice or gratitude.
If you had read the entire license, you'd have seen the part near the end where it says that you can simply state which version(s) of the GPL, past present or future, that you wish to use. I.e. something like "(C) 2007 Joe Q. Schmoe - Licensed under version 2 of the GNU General Public License" would be sufficient, under the GPL's terms, to avoid even touching GPLv3.
Freedom is freedom. You can't say "oh, well, this is good freedom, so it's all right. That's bad freedom, so we don't like that."
:-)
Unless the above is a call for anarchy, then that is exactly what you have to do. This happens to be why we have developed a system of ethics, so that we can judge "good" and "bad" behaviour in a sensible manner.
I don't particularly want anyone to have the freedom to enslave me, so I will tend to campaign to remove the freedom to enslave people. Many people seem to think like me and so, in a largely democratic society, that's the way we tend to go.
If you don't like it, get into politics
sigs are hazardous to your health
No, it's more like they're both cars with a replication bit that can be set to true or false. If the replication bit is true, then you can replicate an unlimited number of copies of the car and give or sell them to other people. With the GPL, all copies of the car must leave the replication bit set to true. With the BSD license, you can change the replication bit on copies of the car.
See this: Freedom or Power.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I choose neither. BSD anyone?
How dare he make use of his freedom of association!
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
As far as I understand this, the NDAs are only for the documentation used to produce the code, not for the code itself (that would be a contradiction to the GPL). It's not a perfect situation, but the code is free anyway: You are allowed to look at it, change it and give it to others any way you please. What you don't have access to is the manuals of the hardware, but then, were those drivers not written at all, you'd not have those manuals anyway, and worse, you'd not even have working code from which you can (legally!) reverse-engineer how to interface to the hardware. Note that the hardware manuals are completely separate from the code, therefore the fact that the hardware manuals are not free (as unfortunate as this may be) doesn't mean that the software written using those manuals isn't free either.
Maybe a good analogy is the following: There's some lock (the hardware), which can be opened with a key (used with a driver). The inner working of the lock is secret. However someone gets the permission to make a key for the lock (write a driver for the hardware), and moreover tell everyone how to make his own key (i.e. open source the driver), as long as he doesn't tell anyone how the lock works (the NDA). Now, anyone can open the lock (access the hardware), although no one but the maker really knows how it works (although they may guess from the nature of the key).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
THANK YOU.
Very well written. Couldn't agree more. I don't see why people think that just because you want freedom for people doesn't mean that those people are free to do ANYTHING. That's just crazy talk.
So what _I_ consider freedom some people would not. And that's really the point. It isn't an absolute thing.
Good thing about the patents. So what if evil companies doesn't want to use free software? Do we really need them? Look how far we have come without them.
-- Make software not war
But don't the anti-patent provisions in GPLv3 only prevent war WITHIN the open source community? In effect, they will stop the Trojan Horse of patented open source code being used to extort money.
What they DON'T stop is someone without ties to GPLv3 code taking patents and launching an attack. I always thought that IF such an attack would come (at least on a large scale), it would be far more likely to come from someone like Microsoft who would be untouched by any GPLv3 conditions. Small scale bullying might (and in some cases apparently has already) take place, but a large scale "destroy the free software ecosystem" attack I always thought was more likely from someone who had no financial incentive to see free software exist. After all, even patent trolls need someone to attack, and if they kill the free software world there will be nothing left for them to prey on except people who can afford lawyers to fight back. Admittedly they would survive, but I doubt they would be institutionally committed to the destruction of free software.
I admit it might make a repeat of the SCO fiasco with patent claims instead of contract and copyright laws somewhat less likely, and that's beyond question a good thing, but it doesn't reduce the large scale threat in any important way I can see. It's still a patent version of the MAD directive that's holding things in check, and (like the real Cold War) if anyone starts shooting the whole works (commercial AND open source) could go down the drain (in the US at least, and I am regrettably certain at least a few large corporate interests and US lawmakers will do their best to make the consequences felt elsewhere, if only to avoid competition getting an edge by not having to fork over for lawyers to fight patent issues.
What we REALLY need is software patent DISARMAMENT. Reform. What have you. I don't doubt ingenious folk in the commercial world will look for some other way to achieve the same end (as some insightful person said - "the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing") but at least this particular gambit will be over.
The ideal case from our side would be to have protection for software that is given away at no cost (with source code) to the benefit of society. Of course the whole "limited monopoly to promote innovation that is publicly disclosed" bit would need to be debated, but at least we would be HAVING the debate. Software patents are just a manifestation of one view of how society should function. There are other views, and I would much prefer to see the debate take place on a societal level in a serious way than to drain the industry's resources fighting legal skirmishes. Life is too short for that, and there's too much code to write.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Or they could, you know, use a BSD.
Would it have killed them to link to the actual draft and documents? Here are the links:
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Hey, you know the part of the license that talks about versions? The part that goes:
"If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation." (from the v3 draft)
This means that if you release it under GPLv2, people only have to look at the v2 restrictions. If someone wants to fork the code, and it doesn't break some other law, you could create a code base under the v3 license, but you don't have to, and that's key. No one's forcing you to use v3. That's why Linus has been criticizing parts of the GPLv3, and saying Linux might not switch to it.
Turning the patent protection agreement into a benefit for the community is nice and all, but I was really hoping for a big "GTFO Novell". Oh well...
business *is* on board. IBM, Nokia, Sun, and many others participated in the drafting of the GPLv3. They probably don't care much about the whole "freedom" aspect, but they find that Free Software is great for their bottom line.
My point is that the authors of the license care more about end-user freedom than about whether XYZ inc. will like the license or not. And that is as it should be.
Except when it isn't. The problem with freedom is it's an inane word with very little meaning. Ultimately we look to it as an ideal rather than as a goal, because it's very difficult to give everyone absolute freedom when one person can use their's to oppress another, removing the freedom from that second group. Perhaps in a hundred years, when we all have virtual reality, we can have "absolute freedom" within that, with everyone free to do whatever they want to their own words without impacting on anyone else's, but until then others have the right to consider curtailing your freedom the moment your actions involve anyone else. How Orwellian of you. Freedom is an inane word with little meaning? You're almost there. A little further and you can argue that the word Freedom actually means its opposite, Slavery.
Also, I love your 100 years in the future time frame for achieving some promised land of absolute freedom. I suppose until then, we can have the FSF be the dictatorship of the proletariat to safeguard the revolution.
Freedom of expression is an inalienable right, meaning it is immoral to suppress it by force. To protect one groups right to free expression by limiting free expression is a contradiction.
Freedom of movement is bound by common sense rules. Your freedom to flail your arms about ends where my body begins. Even more basically, your freedom of movement is bound by physics. Your body cannot occupy the same space as other solids. Thus, despite your inherent right to freedom of movement, you cannot walk thru walls. Now, just because your freedom of movement is limited by either common sense or the laws of physics doesn't mean you can turn around and say, "see? freedom is meaningless".
Basically, I am very suspicious of anyone that wants to protect my freedom by limiting it. When you then justify the limitation by saying it doesn't really exist or is meaningless, I'm going to be downright scornful.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
BSD isn't using any GNU tools these days?
I don't see the justification for that sort of pessimism. Of course they'll fight back as we continue to eat their lunch. That doesn't mean we haven't eaten anything or that we should stop eating now.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
That can work sometimes, but not always.
If we have an application with round buttons and they turn out to be patented, we just make ours square. That's ok because having round buttons is not the purpose of the application. But if we have an application whose purpose is to read and edit MS Word documents, and a patent says we are not allowed to do that, then that application is kaput.
Here are some good explanations of how the patent problem plays out and what we can and can't do about it: http://fsfe.org/transcripts#patents.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
I can't see any other reading of this. Which raises the question: what were Novell smoking when they signed the deal? If Microsoft predicted this kind of clause in GPLv3 (which you can be fairly sure they did), they essentially tricked Novell into signing a contract saying "We're going to stop distributing the very software which is core to our business" and Novell went on record saying how great this contract is.
I have a lot of trouble believing that. In which case, exactly what patent protection does this contract provide?
Way to pull out the logical fallicy. What's next emacs is the best cause the Pope says so.
And to save you the response, I am not challenging your freedom of speach, I'm just challenging the merit of what you spoke freely.
Only when doing so it necessary in order for the GPL to do it's job.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
You're free to call it BonerOS if you want, but he doesn't have to come speak at your BonerOS User Group if he doesn't want to. He wants credit for developing most of the GNU operating system.
He won't give interviews to people who use the term "intellectual property" because it has little meaning, and the meaning it seems to have is deceptive. Information is not property because your possession of information does not diminish my possession, and the categories of copyright, patents, trademarks, geographical indicators, and industrial designs have very little in common, except restricting the expression of certain pieces of information artificially.
No, you're wrong. We're free to use and create proprietary software and GPL 2, BSD, etc., etc. We're even free to create our own open source software licenses if we want. You're the one with the all or nothing mentality that borders on following a cult.
Open Source represents both a social revolution and a mutation of capitalism. It's not going to be a vehicle towards RMS's Socialist revolution (note the difference between social revolution and Socialist revolution). If anything, open source represents the anarchist form of socialist revolution; RMS seeks to impose control over that revolution. He wants centralized control over it. GPL 3 moves us towards a collectivized proprietary license, which brings to mind "in with the new boss, same as the old boss".
So, go ahead and limit your choices and allow RMS to protect you by limiting those choices. There are plenty of other licenses for the rest of us. We'll be enjoying interoperability while you languish in your walled garden.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
This argument is funny. What it translates to is: "I want to write 'free' software, but I don't want anyone else to make money off my work" -- Or more directly, "I want to be greedy but not appear to be"
The BSD license will be around for a long time, since there are plenty of people that code for fun, or to do something they needed done, and don't give a damn about being paid for it, regardless of what others do with their code. As for NetBSD - I'd venture to guess its stagnated for the same reason most large projects do: Bad or NO leadership, combined with other projects doing similar things (FreeBSD, OpenBSD).
Likewise, the GPL will be around for a long time, as it fills the need for others who want some sort of control over their software.
I guess I don't see why one license has to "win" over the other. Use what you like. Just don't bash other stuff.
If anything, the BSD will the one that will die . . . Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. I've seen it before: It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save *BSD from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
It's good that RMS is now telling everyone what are morally acceptable uses of software. I thought the idea of freedom was the freedom to do whatever you wanted with the software, so long as you shared the work.
The author of a piece of software is not being forced into publishing under this licence - the FSF is simply producing a number of different licences and leaving it up to the author to choose one. Sounds like freedom to me.
As the author of a piece of software, you might choose not to use GPL3 - that's your right.
However, as the author of a piece of software, maybe you want to be secure in the knowledge that any 3rd party improvements you receive and integrate into your project are not going to result in the 3rd party suing the users of your software for patent infringement - in this case it would be appropriate for you to licence it using the GPL3. But it's your choice, if you are happy for people to freely submit improvements to your project without protecting you and your project's users then that's fine, just don't publish under GPL3.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I'm curious whether all this back-and-forth went on when the GPL v2 was written. Is there anyone here who remembers that process?
The FSF's view is that locking software away to prevent users from modifying it is a harmful, unethical practice. They, and everyone who uses the GPL, believe it is better not to help people who want to lock their code away. The idea is to encourage more people to contribute to the library of free software by enticing them with the right to reuse some GPL code. This goal is more important than preserving the ethically questionable "freedom" to use software in a way that's harmful.
"Sockets are the standard networking API, also useful for stopping your eyes from falling onto your cheeks" zeromq.org
Even simpler explanation:
MS EULA => Sharing is stealing.
BSD => Sharing is not stealing.
GPL => Not sharing is stealing.
The GPL protects freedom for users in the future by limiting certain actions which are deemed harmful to freedom now.
In a society where the ownership of slaves is permitted, you might think a person has more freedom than in a society where owning slaves is not permitted. However, it's more likely in the former society, especially if slavery is practised actively and widely, that the average level of freedom will be lower, since a slave has considerably less freedom than a person who has only been banned from owning slaves.
IMHO it is worth giving up the right to own slaves (or the right to make software non-free) in order to protect the rights of those who might otherwise be enslaved (or made to rely on non-free software). The BSD licence unfortunately does not preserve Freedoms One and Three, since it does not ensure continued access to Source Code. Note that a successful decompiler, if it existed, would enable the Taking by Force of Freedoms One and Three, as Freedoms Zero and Two can be taken by Force today.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
It boils down to all software being BSD-like in its distribution restrictions (i.e: No restrictions). However the situation will be much closer to a GPL world one, because the incentive to create closed software that you cannot sell will approximate nil. Closed-source's single advantage over opensource - its ability to raise disproportionate funds for its development will disappear and opensource software will simply outachieve it.
well, it seems the slashbot group think only sees GPL and MS. Lets ignore Macs and the BSDs. Even though i explicitly mention that as my other choice.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
If I had point, I'd mod you up.
It's important for people to realize that the GPL3 wasn't drafted in isolation. It was open and had a wide variety of participants, several with immense legal resources that helped guide the drafting.
*sigh* back to work...
Absolutely not. I'm fine with them making money off it. I'm not fine with them taking it and not giving back. I absolutely hate the idea of that something I write might one day end up in a Tivo-like device, where nobody can improve it further.
For instance, IBM benefits from contributions to the Linux kernel. This is fine, IBM returns the favor by then releasing their own code. If I write say, a driver, then IBM finds a bug and fixes it, they'll have to release the source if they plan to distribute. This is how I like it.
On the other hand, I don't ever plan to contribute anything substantial to a BSD licensed project, unless I'm being paid for it. Did BSD ever see any improvements to the code used by MS? I bet they haven't.
Incidentally, one of the reasons of NetBSD's stagnation was exactly that, the license. If you don't believe it, there was an article on slashdot about it. Wasabi Systems, one company that uses NetBSD, hired NetBSD developers. Of course since under the BSD they have no obligation to open anything, from then on that developer started working on Wasabi's proprietary branch, and NetBSD never saw any of it. That sort of thing happening for long enough can easily drain a project of good developers.
Now look at Linux, does that happen there? Hell, no. There are plenty paid kernel developers, and their contributions still get into the main branch.
If you don't like it, get into politics :-)
Or move to the anarchists' utopia of Somalia. There's plenty of freedom there for everyone.
--
Simon
First off... The GPLv3 license's primary goal is to make it more compatable with other licenses.
Second off... the FSF/GNU folks are usually pretty easy-going when it comes to relicensing software for other people to use, if they have a good reason to. There are a number of projects that have given out GPL'd code under a different license for compatability reasons.
Ever try to get somebody from Apache project to relicense code for you? IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. They are much more hardcore, beuracratic, and nasty about this then the GNU folks.
It's like your seeing the world inside-out or something.
Your taking a person like RMS whose primary purpose in life, something he has devoted pretty much every minute of his waking life, is for the freedom of software users everywere. And you act like it's HIM that wants to control YOU.
It's so much bullshit that it makes me want to puke, get your head out of your ass.
Not everybody wants to devote their lives to making software that you can turn around and use to extract fees from the clueless masses. The GPL is about liberation, moving away from restrictive software licenses, not about making other people rich.
The fact is you can't make a business model based around the current GPL version because once you switch to GPL software you become the bitch of the FSF. What is to say the FSF will not add other restrictions on the software you use?
Exactly. AMEN. Amen and amen, a thousand times amen. I have scarcely ever seen it stated more clearly.
FSF cultists, take note. I am aware that a war is currently being waged for people's minds, with the stakes being whether or not each individual who uses open source will recognise the truth and rid themselves of the iron fist of Richard Stallman. Despite all of the derision and abuse you pile upon me and those others of us here who continue to attempt to show people that which you are determined to prevent them from seeing, every single time I see a post from someone like this, indicating that yet one more person has come to understand, it is all made worth it.
Ego denuntio atqui sustento bellum defigo vos, Richard Stallman.
So perhaps you can enlighten us with your great wisdom...which GNU projects (apart from the Linux kernel) are licensed under the GPL 2 only (as opposed to GPL 2 or later) ?
You can just state that your software is a available under the "GPL version 3" and nothing FSF can do will then change the license.
It is only if you add "GPL version 3 or later" that you have to trust FSF.
How can it be a "Final Draft"? Doesn't "Draft" imply that changes could still be made to it?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
The reason that Novell can distribute GPLv3 software in spite of their Microsoft deal is simple - the patent restriction in question does not apply to agreements made before 28 March 2007 (see the end of section 11). The reason that the FSF decided to write the clause in that manner is because they felt that Novell could possibly turn this deal around to do good if they chose to do so, and therefore are giving them a pass this time.
OK, I have hated $X for years but I am unable to use reason against $X, so I act like some new thing about $X has pushed me over the edge, even though I was pushed long ago. I will then slip in $Y, which otherwise is passed over in favor of $X.
The new thing about $X should serve as a wakeup call about...fire....brimstone...hell breaking loose...illuminati starting new world government...
This has got me seriously looking at $Y instead of $X. (Like I had not already made up my mind about this years ago.)
We will probably shift to blahblah which uses $Y. (As if blahblah has no other qualities which would explain it.)
I see the new thing about $X as the beginning of the end. (Like I have not been proclaiming $X's demise for years.)
I cannot help but wonder, is there a term for this kind of troll?
Actually, the GPL allows you to not share. What it forbids is "half-sharing", where you share an executable but not the source code. You're free to not share anything at all, if you wish.
Basically, I am very suspicious of anyone that wants to protect my freedom by limiting it. When you then justify the limitation by saying it doesn't really exist or is meaningless, I'm going to be downright scornful.
You already have the freedom to write your own code to accomplish a task. You already have the freedom to negotiate with other people to use their code to accomplish a task. Developers who use GPL (like you) grant you a new freedom to use our code, but only so long as you pass that same agreement to others.
Now where in all this have I or any other GPL-using developers taken away your freedom?
"open source represents the anarchist form of socialist revolution .. go ahead and limit your choices and allow RMS to protect you by limiting those choices"
.. :)
..
The GPL actually acts to prevent others from limiting my choice in what I do with the software. The only proviso being I must also pass on such freedoms to others.
Your comments regarding anarchist reminds me of the writing of Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov. You aren't him by any chance
key words:
cult, social revolution, mutation, Socialist, anarchist, collectivized
Re:Don't like GPLv3? Run MSFT software
davecb5620@gmail.com
Oops: s/Developers who use GPL (like you)/Developers who use GPL (like me)/g
Need to preview first more often.
Actually, whenever the FSF uses source code that they didn't write they request that the author signs copyright over to the FSF. I imagine they don't use the code unless this happens.
They do this to ensure they have the right to do what you are claiming they can't do.
The people who don't like it are probably not software developers, or at least not software developers who are currently using the GPL.
Most independent software developers who use the GPL are smart enough to have chosen it for a reason, usually because they agree with the philosophy behind it. Most of those developers, I imagine, will be switching to GPLv3 because the philosophy is the same. It's really just closing loopholes and adding protection from patent lawsuits. It's a great thing for independent Free Software developers.
Emphasis mine.
That's was the basic idea has always been and will always be.
The problem is, corporations are finding creative way to appear to be sharing that work, without actually giving the freedoms to do whatever you wanted to the next in line - the user. In fact, they don't effectively share the work.
The initial GPL was written, because RMS always wanted that the End-user receives in turn the freedom to do whatever he wants. Back when GPLv1 was created, the main reason RMS saw was that company refuse to share the work by give the code, so GPLv1 makes mandatory to give the code too (or make it available), whenever you copy a GPL program.
The problem is that corporation found way to remove the possibility to do whatever you want, while still providing a copy of the code. Thus not effectively sharing the work.
The whole GPLv3 idea originated in finding way to plug those holes so that, no matter what the corporation will try, it will BE FORCED TO SHARE THE DAMN WORK !!!
It's not pissing contest against Microsoft, it's pulgging holes in the current GPL.
The main ideas :
- The SIGNING KEYS restriction (TIVOisation) :
TiVo says : "We do support open source and we follow GPL : you can find everything for download on our website. We do share the work".
Facts : To use that work one needs signing keys to load the code back into the TiVo. But those keys are kept über-secret.
Results : TiVo did share the work *in a way*, but found a way to actually remove the end users freedom to do whatever they want, thanks to signing keys.
GPLv3 : asks that users have a way to obtain keys to actually do whatever they want with given software.
- The PATENT mine field :
Random corporation say : "We do support open source and we follow GPL : you can find everything for download on our website. We do share the work".
Facts : The technology underneath is heavily patented. You can't do anything with the code, even if received it as per GPL, because otherwise you'll be violating enough patent to immediately find a horde of lawyers knocking at your door with Cease-And-Dessit letters.
Results : Source is published but you still can't do anything with the code because patents restrict you freedom.
CPLv3 : asks that no patent should stop the end users' freedom to do whatever they want - Either the code should be patent-free or license should be granted to GPL-compliant usage.
- REMOTE access.
Company says : "We aren't distributing copies of our software, people are running it remotely on our servers. We don't need to share the work"
Fact : Users are running an application (remotely) but have all their freedoms to thinker with it stripped.
This is especially more frequent with Web2.0, where websites are full almost desktop-grade AJAX applications, but are pulled from the server. But this can also be considered for applications that are ran over a remote interactive session like terminals (Telnet, SSH) or whatever similar.
Result : Is you give it to users so they use it, you must give them the right to analyse / modify and/or make copies of it. But those company found a way to give only access without code.
GPLv3 : Counts giving remote access to a program as a form of distribution.
The GPLv3 is only about founding way to still grant the end-user freedom to thinker, whatever the corporation may do in attempt to stop that freedom transmission.
It's not some ideological religious war against freedom-hating-microsoft or against other ideologically impure infidels.
It's just that RMS has a special character which tends to ruin such work by speaking using extremists words.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Logical fallacy being? I'm not the one who was implying that freedom doesn't matter to RMS just because he chooses not to associate with people he disagrees with.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
>well, it seems the slashbot group think only sees GPL and MS. Lets ignore Macs and the BSDs. Even though i explicitly mention that as my other choice.
A choice that you had already made years ago, an "inconvenient" that fact you conceal in order to dramatize your "GPL3 fiasco" fiction into some kind of revelation. I am considering updating the Wikipedia entry on trolling. Would you mind parting with any more techniques? Of course, whatever identities and examples that I might use, I will just make up, just like you did with your "surprise revelation".
Nonfree software apologists, take note. I am aware that a war is currently being waged for people's code, with the stakes being whether or not each individual who writes free software will recognize the truth and rid themselves of that giant sucking sound of nonfree-software-luvin, patent-crazed parasites such as Microsoft, who want to "build bridges" to you so that they might better put your code into their nonfree ecosystem and take the exploitation profits to outdo anything you might have had in mind.
They are serious, too, proclaiming that the GPLv3 will interfere with their special brand of bridges. However, since they know that their reputation in the free software world is even worse right now than anyone could have foreseen, they are counting on a revival of the anti-GPL troll ecosystem to do some of their dirty work. Of course, they have always bought some media for this purpose.
These trolls seem to be like Renfields.
And again the point was that he is challenging the right for someone to name the composite they put together. I was using the fact that he uses the power of his notierity (much of it earned as the result of the work of others) to intimidate people to do as he wishes, to indicate that it was more then a passing fancy. Not that it's not something he couldn't do. But since it's a big issue, I will say this, if he wants to claim to be the leader of the movement then he has a responsibility to all in the movement, which means dealing with people working on GNU forks and who name things in ways that further his self promotion , and people who have different ideas from him. Or he can be like Bush and not read news papers and surround him with people who will just tell him what he wants to hear. He won't give interviews to people who use the term "intellectual property" because it has little meaning, and the meaning it seems to have is deceptive. Information is not property because your possession of information does not diminish my possession, and the categories of copyright, patents, trademarks, geographical indicators, and industrial designs have very little in common, except restricting the expression of certain pieces of information artificially. How do you restricting the expression of pieces of information naturally?
The only thing wring with the term intelectual property is the term intelectual. there are many non-physical things that people have rights to. Because those rights are transferable they (the rights are property). The problems with them all stem from their common nature, they all involve the rights to re-produce something. And they should be talked about together take make sure that the appropriate rights are given to the appropriate thing. Patents, copyrights and Trade marks all have different durations, for different reasons. When everything was done in hardware no one claimed that the chips blueprints, and therefor the chip were copywriten, they pateneted the chips. Now in the age of general purpose computing, we right code to get a machine to do a specific taks instead of making hardware. And then we use copyright on the code. So we've switched from patents to copyrights, and because our designs are now code what does get patented is overly broad and problematic and has little to do with how it is implimented. So we deo need to talk about it as a whole because we need the laws for each to make sense and with technology we need the borders to be clear.
More precisely, you have to trust everyone, since anyone has the option of taking such software under "or later" and putting it under a future version.
wow, seem to paraphrase my argument while substantially changing it. By any chance are you a lobbyist for the tobacco industry.
My argument was that he doesn't respect the right of others to do what they will with what he has supposedly freely given them. And that more then an expressed opinion he uses the power of his influence and his freedom of association to try to force others to act in accordance with that opinion.
So the not dealing with people who disagree with an opinion was not part of why I thought that freedom didn't matter. The opinon in question is why, the not associating is how much.
That's true for all the projects that start in FSF and all the patches that they inherit. But, they have inherited a number of projects, and presumabley some of those projects were accepting patches from the world at large. Now when the main team handed over the project, and the copyrights they have, does the FSF go and hunt down all the patch contributors to get the copyright. Or do they take it for granted that they were told that they were getting the copyright when that may not entirely be true.
This argument is funny. What it translates to is: "I want to write 'free' software, but I don't want anyone else to make money off my work" -- Or more directly, "I want to be greedy but not appear to be"
:)
I see absolutely nothing wrong with "I want to write free software, but I'm also willing to license that code for reasonable compensation."
That's certainly no more greedy than "I see free code out there that I'd like to use, but I don't want to pay for it."
I guess I don't see why one license has to "win" over the other. Use what you like. Just don't bash other stuff.
We agree completely.
The best way to reply to this might be 'right on paper turns out wrong in practice'.
It is best to think of the Committee and Community input as being advisory only, ultimately Stallman/the FSF makes all the decisions and cannot be overturned.
You would think this would mean a tougher license, but what we got instead is one that focuses on punishing enemies and rewarding friends, not "car[ing] more about end-user freedom than about whether XYZ inc. will like the license or not."
You can see that in some of the (careful) cut outs for companies like Cisco (note that section 6 only covers consumer items, not, say a Cisco enterprise router); IBM/Intel's embedded chip business (an exception is made for Linux burned to ROM where there is no opportunity to change); Google (the ineffectual Affero provision. In Eben's defense, he has spoken out about Google's failure to live up to the spirit of the GPL). Probably most significantly, the patent provisions have a cut out so that only "contributed code" is covered, not everything in a distribution. This is a big win for IBM - never forget that IBM is the single biggest patenter, NOT Microsoft!
I fully support the right of the FSF to do this. It truly is their license. But the cut outs and oddly twisted language tells me that this license is about something other than _just_ Freedom.
The developer community will have to make a choice to stick with v2 and move projects forward in that manner, or switch to v3 with its friends and enemies list.
Reminiscent of "Animal Farm", one has to wonder how the rules will be changed on the barnyard door next time!
A sig?!? I don't think so.....
See http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/gnu/
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
You make good points... Perhaps "friends and enemies" is part of it. I still think the GPLv3 is moving in the "more free" rather than "less free" direction though. Dismantling the enemies methods of causing trouble will in the end make the Free Software movement more powerful, and although your Animal Farm analogy is accurate perhaps, I still trust the FSF, GNU, the SFLC and RMS more than any other big entity in the software arena.
The moment the FSF does something that hurts the users of Free Software, I'll give 'em hell.
"I have a Freedom to own and use a gun (the 2nd Amendment affirms it!). It's not my fault the bullet ended up in your brain. Laws against so-called 'murder' are bunk; all they do is call my freedom 'bad freedom' and try to restrict it!"
Yeah, right.
People's right to do what they want with GPL software ends when they try to restrict the freedom of others, in the same way that my freedom to shoot a gun ends at your head.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Final Draft" is the language used outside of software for the rough equivalent of a "Release Candidate" in software, the "Final" is a statement of intent, not fact.
I was also hoping for some punishment for Novell. However if this prevents any future corporate retardation from occurring then I'm ok with it. As much as I hate Novell for being the trader it is I would rather focus on the greater good and I feel that this is what is happening. Being an SA for a large company all I can do is use whatever sway I do have to move away from companies like Novell. In the end I would like to see Microsoft focus on writing better software to compete with OSS. I have watched them for 20 years and I don't think they will change until their grip is broken.
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
I'm not Bezroukov, but thanks for that link. Interesting thoughts.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
It is a Microsoft-World war. In case you haven't noticed over the last 20 years or so MS has attacked anyone that they felt would take even .01% of what they consider to be revenue that belongs to them.
They don't believe in competition of any kind. The GPL is the only challenge to the MS monopoly that has a snowballs
chance in hell to make a dent in it.
Over the years I may have met one or two Unix bigots that were trying to eliminate any MS software running in the company
but I have met dozens of MS cult drones that reject anything that does not have the MS stamp of approval on it.
Most of these drones have zero understanding of architecture and infrastructure and why MS is not always one size fits all.
Freedom is divine. Its what is best for everyone.
and yes I do have ADD. You couldn't tell from my posts?
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
i think what he's trying to refer to is things like how people say at one time 'i support freedom of speech', and then at another time say 'i think (such and such which consists of speech) is bad'. this particular thing annoys me, and i'd prefer people would delineate their meaning of 'free speech', because generally speaking people don't actually want free speech, meaning people being able to speak whenever and however they wanted to (including yelling in someone else's ear or something else that could be damaging).
:)
since almost everyone wants almost-free speech, they get along saying 'free speech', but i think people should better delineate what they mean by that. great-great-grandparent seems to dislike the idea of people insulting people based on race, for example, but if we asked someone like that whether he thinks free speech is a good thing, he'd say yes and it'd be unlikely he'd add a caveat to the response. by comparison, no-one seems to want people to have freedom to enslave
my personal opinion: people should be allowed to communicate with others however they want if it's not immediately disruptive to people outside the conversation. i mean, _all_ communication, even that which i find insulting, if i can't hear it i oughtn't complain about it. however, people should not be able to talk to other people if the person being talked to does not want to be. so people would be able to make evilish remarks to friends, but talking to people that aren't expecting it (like, talking to random people on the street) would be covered more or less like it is now (where if a policeman/judge/legislator thinks you're being an ass, you get in trouble). this would mean, for example, we can publish anything we want on a website, because in order to be offended you'd have to actually visit it (an http get).
the privacy of one's mind is important.
you do have something to hide.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Oh, please do not misunderstand me. I think GPL 2 is great. It represents a true paradigm shift, and I predict that it's going to infect capitalism and cause it to mutate in ways that are not clear. GPL has a very strong social anarchist tendency which I find very healthy.
Sure, as great a document as GPL 2 is, it's not perfect and needs some reform. I just have problems with GPL 3, which I see as a move away from freedom and a move away from the social anarchy mode, towards a Marxist-Leninist control from above mode. Especially with the provisions that try to control hardware (admittedly improved in this last draft, but not to my satisfaction), I'm seeing a sacrifice of a basic fundamental F/OSS freedom in order to "protect" the project. Maybe you're cool with that, but I think the FSF could irretrievably damage the free software project by this method of "protecting" it. It's actually a regressive move back to proprietary principles, the difference being that the "collective", ruled by the FSF, is the proprietor.
Anyway, I see the GPL 3 as a rewrite of the GPL 2 along the lines of "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others" being a rewrite of "All animals are created equal". Maybe I'm being unfair, but I've studied revolution, and this is exactly how a revolution gets hijacked. Also note that it is often one of the founding revolutionaries that does the hijacking (Cf. Lenin).
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
>GPL 3 does limit what you do with the software, regardless of your passing on the same freedom to others, by placing limits on the hardware you are allowed to use.
I don't understand how the GPL3 limits the hardware you are allowed to use. OTOH, If you are distributing (or "conveying") the software via hardware, well then, that's a little different, isn't it?
The distributor can inflict Tivoization upon you, passing on to you only part of Freedom 0 that he was granted via the GPL. I believe the latest draft allows this within organizations and businesses so that its members have reduced freedoms. So what are you asking for, that Freedom 0 be even less protected than it already is in the latest draft? This degrading Freedom 0 for the sake of Tivoization goes against the ideals that FSF began with. Why would any free software person support this?
NetBSD's "stagnation" was Charles Hannum trying to fuck the project over and engage in a massive sympathy ploy before he got shitcanned for doing stupid things to the CVS tree.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
It seems somewhat problematic to put phrases in the license that the license creators admit are there to hurt MS. This is something they really shouldn't be saying publicly, as it could hurt them down the road legally.
Of course, MS has never played fair, so maybe we shouldn't complain too much if the FSF doesn't play fair either.
Some businesses see it, and some don't. The ones that don't see it are monopolies, and try to convince people that this stuff is anti-business when it's actually only anti-monopoly.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Um. Patent protection is meant specifically to cover independently invented methods and "interoperability", but at least some (non-software) patents have some value...
The reason we don't like patents is because software patents are much to broad and generic and they repeatedly cover obvious methods, like the Eolas patent Microsoft infringes. Patents are meant to increase innovation, but if software patents had teeth, they would effectively decrease it.
Look out!
The compatibility matrix does not include the GFDL.
o n_License
http://gplv3.fsf.org/dd3-faq
So is the GPLv3 still incompatible with the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentati
It makes using the text of, say, Wikipedia articles completely off-limits in a GPL'd program.
Why the FSF would promote licenses incompatible with the GPL is beyond me. And totally unnecessary IMHO.
Very shortsighted to promote artificial distinctions between code and data -- the kind of shortsightendess one would not expect from a Lisp hacker like RMS.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The Linux kernel doesn't really do anything without userland tools. The GNU project had already created all those tools and had no working kernel. If they had not existed, it would have been difficult to create a Linux-based operating system so quickly after the release of the kernel. I suppose they could have ported a BSD userland, but the point is they didn't. Most of the operating systems referred to as Linux have GNU packages as the majority of the system. He started the GNU project because there did not exist a free operating system. He wants the operating systems that use the GNU system with a linux kernel to be referred to in a way that credits the developers.
He is not challenging their right to do anything, or else he probably would have sued Red Hat years ago. He doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do, and he doesn't want to endorse anyone who doesn't give credit to the work of his project.
You don't restrict the expression of information naturally; that's the point. Copyrights and patents etc. are artificial rights, created by the government. Just because certain rights and privileges are transferable doesn't make them property.
Patents and copyrights and trademarks should be talked about together because it is important to integrate the granted rights into a coherent whole. They should not be talked about together as "intellectual property" because they are different; they have different durations for different reasons.
"I'm not Bezroukov, but thanks for that link. Interesting thoughts"
:)
You shouldn't be surprised if you get a bit of a reaction when you call Open Source people an anarchist cult now should you
davecb5620@gmail.com
The GPLv3 isn't written by a fulminating, roaring and foaming RMS that screams "Thou shall not put online a single line of PHP that you didn't make available".
The GPLv3 went through several revision before reaching draft 4.
The whole limitation of remote access is optional.
As are all the additional added stuff making it mutually compatible with various license.
Notice also how already almost any web stuff features a small almost unnoticeable plug "powered by x.y.z" be it a GPL PHP app or some proprietary app.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
will be Microsoft Linux.
Novell showed the way with SCO. Use Novell and you don't have to worry about SCO IP infringement lawsuits. When Novell announced that they would effectively protect any company who used Novell and was sued for it by SCO, they became very attractive to companies that wanted to use Linux but were afraid of Lawsuits. The funny thing is that Microsoft may hold patent threats, but it could easily use that to push it's own Linux distribution.
Headline: Microsoft releases Linux version with software you cannot get from any other Linux distro. Why? Imagine the impact on the sales of RedHat if you could get the same thing (CentOS, Oracle) with Microsoft software and support on top of it. Certainly much of the FOSS community would freak out, but businesses wishing to support both MS and Linux systems would jump at the chance. For those businesses wishing to support Linux, it would give them a transition system that would never need to transition, keeping the lock-in that makes Office so popular. Businesses could hire developers who have experience programming for Apache and PHP to work along side people using .NET, VB and IIS. Instead of having to choose a candidate based on experience with the one system they have, they could hire whoever seems most qualified in any.
Instantly MS could say that it is "fostering" cross-platform development and at the same time edge out the players who release OSS. There is nothing that says you cannot run closed source software on Linux, or even distribute the same, as long as you don't mix the source. If anybody could pull it off, Microsoft could and if they do, it will be a major blow to the other Linux vendors which in turn decreases their revenue, and essentially squeezes down the amount of contribution that RedHat and SUSE are able to afford.
When? Well I'd expect the announcement shortly before the end of the current agreements with SUSE expire, so that MS can make a clean break, retain SUSE users and take a big bite out of RedHat revenue. RedHat would be in quite a pickle as any legal action they pursue against MS is already questionable and MS has the patents to make the lawsuit ugly.
If someone at MS were really smart they were talking over beers with SCO people with this in mind all along, make the lawsuits scary and you will make money -wink- -wink- ... and thinking at the same time that if SCO gets hammered out of existence then take the assimilation approach.
I don't know if I'd be able to resist running exchange on a Linux system, the temptation of the dark side is very strong.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
MS can't make you distributor of other people's software just by them sying you are one.
MS promises not to sue you would be completely independent of the rights granted to you by the GPLv3.
MS is very powerful, but event ehm are not that powerful.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You are failing miserably to explain how MS will kill GPL.
I just read your rambling and it lack any coherence.
If that is MS's plan then I frankly think we don;t have too much to worry about.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.