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Samba Adopts GPLv3 For Future Releases
Jeremy Allison - Sam writes with news that the Samba Team has decided to adopt the GPLv3 and LGPLv3 licenses for all future releases of Samba. Follow the link for a FAQ addressed to Samba developers and contributors. "To allow people to distinguish which Samba version is released with the new GPLv3 license, we are updating our next version release number. The next planned version release was to be 3.0.26, this will now be renumbered so the GPLv3 version release will be 3.2.0. To be clear, all versions of Samba numbered 3.2 and later will be under the GPLv3, all versions of Samba numbered 3.0.x and before remain under the GPLv2."
Indeed. A lot of projects are going to be switching to GPLv3 from GPLv2 in the coming weeks and months, are we going to get an article for each one of these projects that change their status? Why is this news?
the
*.2.* indicates GPLv3
*.0.* indicates GPLv2
So, to easily remember this kids 2 equals 3 and 0 equals 2.
All set now?
Yep, Samba is a major project.
But more to the point, LOTS of vendors re-package Samba and sell it as NAS's and such.
So doesn't this mean that smbfs is now dead? Or stuck at 3.0.x? Since the Linux kernel will not be going GPLv3, from my understanding of what Linus has said.
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What a relief! These past few nights I have been unable to sleep as I pondered which versions of what software should adopt the new GPL (which is really sweet BTW you should check it out, it has awesome graphics). I can rest a little easier now knowing that they are moving to GPLv3.
After all, its the morally correct thing to do.
'Cos odd numbered releases mean "development" releases. People have been trained by the Linux kernel to think that. It's like odd numbered Star Trek movies, everyone knows they suck :-).
Jeremy.
There was a lot of doomsaying as to how the GPL V 3 would never be adopted, most unexpectedly by Linus, and also by the normal suspects in spreading FUD. It is good to see that
the FSF and Stallman have finally addressed patent issues and prevented tivoization. As a major project like Samba has adopted this, many other projects will probably also follow suit. It becomes harder and harder to stay GPL v 2 if the entire body of software is V3. Linus may have stated that the kernel won't have V3, but increasingly that will lead to the kernel being unable to incorporate the latest patches from others.
When will 3.2 be released, and when will Novell include it in SUSE?
No it isn't in error. "GPLv2-only" licenses are incompatible with both GPLv3 and LGPLv3, as they add additional conditions which are incompatible with GPLv2. It isn't the LGPLv3 code that is the problem, it's the "GPLv2 only". Thus the advice to relicense to "GPLv2 or later". See the FSF comments on this.
Jeremy.
Well, this message's (actual) parent is gonna get modded Redundant because I was a bit slow in composing my reply. (My excuse: if I keep my session open too long, every clicked link pegs my CPU for what feels like half a minute, new tabs longer.)
It would be nice if slashcode's Preview would inform a poster about other replies that were made to the parent posting since the new posting was started or last previewed. That might cut down on the number of redundant follow-ups where some posters compose slower than others and don't think to click the parent's message number to reopen it in a new tab to check for other replies first.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Nothing. That code doesn't link to Samba and so the license change has no effect. Apple are perfectly free to keep shipping Samba, as are all other vendors who obey the GPLv3.
Jeremy.
Only the owner of the code is allowed to assign the license and people made submissions to Linux under the GPL2-flavored license. Linus has no authority to release all the Linux code under a new license since he only owns a small percentage of the code. There have been thousands of people submitting to Linus under the GPL2-flavored license and it is impractical, if not impossible, to track those submittors down and secure a GPL3 agreement from them.
Sure, Linux could adopt the SMB strategy of committing to make future release of Linux GPL3 (eg, say Linux 3.0). Then all submissions into that new version would have to be GPL3. Practically though, many of the big players in Linux might prefer GPL2 over GPL3 and that could force a fork.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
That's called the BSD license.
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.ph
The troll with karma.
That's funny, according to this page :
:-).
http://freshmeat.net/stats/
fully 65.74% are under the GPL with an additional 6.53% under the LGPL. If anyone is cutting themselves off from the mainstream it would be BSD and other types of license, it seems
Jeremy.
Absolutely. I've tried to explain this before, but it always gets muddled up. Ideally I'd like to release my code with the least restrictions possible, because I want the users of my software to be free, but in practice if I don't put some copyleft like restrictions on my code then it will end up that some of the users of my software will not be free. If my goal is to maximize the freedom of the users of my software then, paradoxically, I must restrict them - specifically, from taking freedom away from others.
As such, I believe the BSD style licenses are more idealistic than copyleft licenses, but less effective.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The problem is legally there is no such thing as a "public domain" work created by an individual. If you created it, it is copyright automatically, period. No one can use it without your permission (AKA a license). The BSD license is basically a license that says "do whatever you want with this code, and I take no legal responsibility for it's use". That is pretty much as "public domain" as a license can be. And it's 3 simple letters so it's simple to apply :P
"Public domain" only really applies to works with expired copyright, or works created by public institutions like the U.S. Government.
You obviously don't write code...
See, but that doesn't break any of the Freedoms that FSF espouses. I can still update, modify, recompile, or remove whichever version of Samba Apple ships. I could even write my own SMB-compatibility app. In the worst case scenario, I can't use that preference pane if I "break" Samba. But that's my problem, not Apple's.
Apple is actually really modular with its code. You can replace a lot of components, and as long as they're compatible, there's no issue. I've upgraded several of the installed OSS programs, and I've even replaced Apple's Finder (I literally do not even have the old one on this computer). I'm perfectly allowed to do that. Occasionally that borks updates when Apple tries to update the Finder or Apache in a 10.4.y patch, but that's my problem (and easily worked around) and not a GPL violation.
This just in: "Idealism less effective than pragmatism. Film at 11."
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I'm a not an expert on GPLv2, buy can't someone simply juust take the existing Samba CVS code and create a "new" Samba and stay with the GPLv2?
Yes. And Samba has forked in the past.
But it's a big, complex project with a few people behind it and they're pretty good at what they do. Unless you can poach one of them to work on your fork, it'll probably be a good 6 months before anyone on your fork even understands what's going on under the hood, let alone is able to substantially improve on it. Once Samba 4 is declared stable, version 3 will suddenly appear very dated because 4 adds all sorts of goodies - AIUI the plan is to basically bring Samba up to the level of "able to act natively as a DC in an ADS domain" - and a fork will likely die on the vine or exist purely in commercial projects.
Also, just looking at 3.0.25 here they have the "any later version" option. so even if you retained copyright to your patch you submitted it under the "any later version" clause so they are presumably free to invoke that (as would anyone else who wanted to fork the project).
Here's how at GPLv3 is playing at my Fortune 50 company, who makes contributions to lots of OSS projects.
1. We make tivoized device.
2. OSS project which we use for the device switches to GPLv3.
3. We start looking at other alternatives, decide project is no longer useful to us.
4. We stop contributing to the project.
I anticipate there will be a lot of corporate contributors quietly exiting their Samba involvement in the near future. A few of these exits will see some pub when a major developer switches employers as a result, but most corporate OSS contributions will disappear with a whimper. GPLv3 will return OSS to the original egalitarian ideals, but it's probably going to reverse all the corporate uptake that has happened in the last few years. If you're about to say that this only applies to tivoized devices, you should take a look at the market and see that the majority of corporate uptake of OSS has been in internet-connected appliances.
How eloquently you trash the GPL when you obviously never read it. "RMS" and we who understand what he wants have absolutely no problems with people making money of software. What we have a problem with is getting software and then being at the mercy of its creator: If we get software, we want to be able to improve it, should the need arise; otherwise, if the company who distributed the non-free software goes under or just doesn't want to deal with us, we won't get the bugs fixed or new features introduced.
Of course, a company who offers no value when redistributing GPL'd software won't make money: They have to migrate from a sense of entitlement ("intellectual property") to facing the fact that they have to offer some additional value instead of intangible, nearly cost-free reproducible data streams. If they manage that and make money of it, all the better. If they don't, good riddance. But that's their problem, it shouldn't be ours.
Indeed, both as a private person and in any position in a commercial or governmental entity, I'd choose GPL3'd software (or, at the very least, demand contractually that the code is handed over to me so I can fix it and the devices won't stop me from doing that - which pretty much amounts to the same), because I don't want to be dependent on some (other) company when there's no need to be.
Or would you like it if Gates (or Jobs or whoever) decides to take over the world and you can't stop him because he revoked the key for the DRM of the devices of your police, military and any other agency which could stop him? Or how about having a bug in medical software but being unable to fix it because of not having the code and, even if you had the code, updating the software being impossible because of the DRM, thus the hospital equipment randomly killing people by switching off life support or overdosing the IV?
Also, you can still release your own code under any license you like, unless you used GPL'd code in the first case. And you also should think of how much more hassle it is with non-free software where one needs first to ask and pay billions for some "intellectual property" before one can get a bug fixed.
In Soviet Russia, government controls corporations.
In Capitalist America, corporations control government.
The real question is, what, exactly, do people think is going to happen? MS is going to buy the FSF and create a GPLv4 which is just an MS license? Do they think that somehow this means that the FSF will be able to steal your code away from you? None of these things are remotely likely, or in the case of the second, even reasonably possible.
The biggest concern is the FSF really screwing up, inadvertently, a new license. *That's* the only reasonable concern. The FSF has shown great care in the past, and present, in drafting their licenses, and it seems highly reasonable to assume they'll do so in the future. Of course, if it were as easy as you (and others) seem to think to relicense a project from GPLv2 to GPLv3 (or any other earlier-later transition), then there really wouldn't be an issue. But it *is* difficult, unless you are the sole programmer for a project, and you don't die or pass on stewardship of the project to someone else without granting them full copyright of your code. And if you do accept patches or other collaboration, then you'll have to be sure to consolidate fully copyrights from everyone who contributes code (which is the exact thing you are arguing *against* people doing).
On the other hand, just adding "or later" (not adding, actually, just not removing), you avoid all those problems. All those real problems which actually exist. You do leave yourself vulnerable to potential problems, primarily the FSF botching a subsequent license. But if your code is GPLvX or later, if GPLvX+1 is botched, you can still just use GPLvX. Of course, you can't stop others from switching over to a newer license, but your code will remain under the "GPLvX or later" license, if that's what you wish. And even if GPLvX+1 (or later) is botched, it's probably not botched all that much.
So the risk is small, the potential problems are small and fairly limited, and the potential for avoiding non-small, non-low risk problems is great. How is this foolish again?
If you're about to say that this only applies to tivoized devices, you should take a look at the market and see that the majority of corporate uptake of OSS has been in internet-connected appliances.
Internet connected does not mean "tivoized".
For example, Linksys used the Linux kernel on its routers, got forced to publish the source and now you have 3rd party firmware for those devices. So, they did participate and they did use Linux. This deal would still be valid under GPLv3. The only thing you are not allowed to do is FORBID anyone else to put modified code on your device by signing the code.
You can be networked all you want and allow 3rd party code. Those are different issues.