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Will GPLv3 Drive Users from Linux to FreeBSD?

Posted by Zonk on from the sad-penguin dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Last week ZDNet put up an article asking a simple question: will GPL3 drive Linux users to FreeBSD? It's based on issues raised in the August FreeBSD Foundation Newsletter. That publication features a letter by the vice president of the FreeBSD Foundation, Justin Gibbs, arguing that the GPLv3 restricts the rights of commercial users of open source software, and is just the FSF's first step in changing the GPL in ways that authors of GPL software may not have intended. He suggests that commercial users should seriously consider BSD-licensed software as an alternative if they want to be able to safely ship products in the future. This is especially in light of requirements from the FCC that software running on devices (such as software-defined radios) be end-user replaceable. Gibbs states that the FreeBSD Foundation will provide an alternative to GPLv3'd software, especially in light of Stallman's statement that further GPL revisions are due in the near future. Is this likely to cause discontent among Linux users, or will they mostly ignore it?"

14 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. GPL2 is bad enough for embedded developers? by e4liberty · · Score: 1, Informative
    The "killer" clause in the GPL2 is:

    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. IANAL, but it seems clear to me that a device (the "work that you distribute") run by software with embedded Linux "contains ... the Program," and therefore must "be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."

    The GPL http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html goes on to say:

    If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. How can anyone use Linux in an embedded device and not open all of their code?

    --e

    1. Re:GPL2 is bad enough for embedded developers? by Chirs · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sorry, you've got it wrong. The "work" is the software, not the physical device as a whole. You can have multiple software "works" (potentially with different licensing) that are aggregated on the physical device as a whole. This is why the whole "mere aggregation" clause exists in the GPL.

  2. Re:GPLv3 software? by Ash-Fox · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wow, you must have thought about for a long time. The whole reason for the GPL3 is to stop companies like TiVO. Some people object to TiVO being able to base a product on Linux but then not let the Linux community pull it apart and play with it.
    Linus has no intention of licensing the kernel under GPLv3. TiVO doesn't have a problem.

    I am interested in finding out software that is used for such purposes which will be licensed under the new GPLv3 and which companies are effected.

    I am looking forward to your reply.
    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  3. Re:Um by ajs · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, I always find this debate pointless on its face. BSD uses huge amounts of GPL-licensed software, so there's no substantial difference. In fact, BSD will be using GPLv3-licensed software, unless they intend on taking over their own fork of GCC (a monumental task which would substantially harm their ability to support BSD itself).

    I also suspect that you'll see a fair amount of Gnome and KDE packages (though I don't know about the core of those two projects, and how they'll proceed) use the GPLv3.

    Linux and BSD OSes will continue to use much of each other's code, and things like the file utilities will become less and less important. Eventually, I expect that you'll find Linux and BSD essentially differing on nothing more than how their distributions are structured and their kernels. The idea that their different licenses have a substantial impact on the end-user OS is rather myopic at best.

  4. Users? by leuk_he · · Score: 2, Informative

    Users care only a very little bit about the license. They want working software. Developers do care only a little bit since they cannot randomly mix & match code uder different licenses. GPL by definition gives them the most choice of source. Creators of disitibutions and hardware vendor (should) care a lot about the license. But they do not care about the freedom of the suers, they care about the number of copies they can distribute.

    The vice president of bsd foundation cares for hardware vendor, who want to restrict hardware, which he calls the users/ freebsd community. However that are not users you and me who buy/use the end result.

    PS..
    -- BSD is dead. ;)

  5. Not quite. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The only GNU tools in any of the BSDs are the compiler toolchain. None of the standard unix utilities are the GNU versions like they are in most (all?) linux distros. Everything from ls, to grep to diff/patch to inetd is BSD licensed in the BSDs.

  6. Re:GPLv3 software? by mrball_cb · · Score: 2, Informative

    The whole reason for the GPL3 is to stop companies like TiVO. Some people object to TiVO being able to base a product on Linux but then not let the Linux community pull it apart and play with it.
    The source code for the Tivo IS freely available. The hardware does a check for validity of the kernel and refuses to run it if it doesn't match expected values, but that's hardware. That hardware is not and never has been covered by the GPL. The GPLv3 is an attempt by RMS to expand the scope of control and legislate hardware interaction with the software. I can see that the reason they need a new GPL is because this is contradictory to what the GPLv2 stood for and stood against. So where does it stop? Your refrigerator will be turned off because you use a brand of orange juice that RMS is against?
  7. Re:Um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Eventually, I expect that you'll find Linux and BSD essentially differing on nothing more than how their distributions are structured and their kernels.

    BSD's don't have 'distributions'.

    The OS (the kernel and the userland utilities) are written by the same folks. They don't slap together bits and pieces from all over the place like Linux. That gives them a much more consistent feel.

    The BSDs do use a good number GNU utils, but they are working to write BSD versions of everything. It's a large task so it will take quite a while, but the work IS being done.

  8. MOD PARENT UP - factual error in summary by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think this is correct. Much as I'd like it if the FCC did require the software in SDRs to be user-replaceable, in reality I think they want the opposite. They want to eliminate the ability for users to tinker with anything, and that's exactly what the GPL is designed to protect.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  9. Re:GPLv3 software? by putaro · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, there's a lot of different reasoning behind the GPL. One reason for the GPL is that to have you return to the community modifications and improvements that you make to code you receive from the community. Another reason behind the GPL, though, is to allow people who receive code from you (that you based on code received from the community) to *modify* the code. When the GPLv2 was written, the thinking was that requiring you to share the code would automatically allow people to make modifications to it.

    Tivo found a way around it that stuck to the letter of the GPL but violated the spirit of the agreement. Certainly if you read what RMS has written about his philosophy about software the ability to change and modify software that you get is a keep part of his philosophy.

    Rightly or wrongly the Free Software Foundation is not about making software that businesses can use to make money. It's about making software that people can share and modify freely. If you're a business and you want to use code that comes under the GPL you should be prepared to go along with what the community expects. If not, go find code that is licensed differently, like under BSD, or hey, consider *investing* some money in the software so that you can do whatever you like with it and license it however you like.

  10. Re:GPLv3 software? by arevos · · Score: 3, Informative

    Linus has no intention of licensing the kernel under GPLv3. TiVO doesn't have a problem. That's not what TiVO thinks.

    TiVO likely uses some utilities and libraries from the GNU Project, such as glibc and coreutils, and when GNU switches to GPL3, they won't be able to make use of future versions or patches from that source.
  11. GCC Replacement by landonf · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's kind of amusing to look at the history of FOSS, and a recurring theme has been that developers think that just because they have developed a complex piece of software over a long period of time (gcc comes to mind) that it's not open to being reimplimented in the future. If GPL3 becomes a thorn in would-be commercial users, there will be money available to replace it with something that's not so obnoxious.

    This is occurring -- see LLVM and LLVM-GCC. Several corporations are contributing to LLVM -- including Apple

    The open source iPhone development tools currently use LLVM with the GCC front-end. In this case, the gcc driver is used to interface with LLVM, and output LLVM byte-code. LLVM handles the assembly/linking of this byte code as a native executable. The GCC driver simply provides a fully GCC-compatible front-end -- it can (and has been) forked from GPLv2 licensed gcc, and in theory, could be maintained in perpetuity as a fork -- or potentially replaced outright.

    --
    http://plausible.coop
  12. Re:GPLv3 software? by Ash-Fox · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's not what TiVO thinks.
    Yes, the kernel being licensed under the GPLv3 could harm them, but Linus has stated that he's not interested. The only time he considered doing so was for ZFS support. But then FUSE came along and ended up providing the support for the filesystem under Linux.

    TiVO likely uses some utilities and libraries from the GNU Project, such as glibc and coreutils, and when GNU switches to GPL3, they won't be able to make use of future versions or patches from that source.
    Actually glibc and coreutils are released under the LGPL, which are far less restrictive on what you can do with them.
    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  13. Re:BSD: providing unencumbered software for 30 yea by fsmunoz · · Score: 2, Informative

    BSD: providing unencumbered software for 30 years Really? Tell me how do you did the math on that. I think you are confusing BSD Unix with the BSD license. Linux predated the first fully unemcumbered BSD distribution, heck tone of the most important reasons for Linux to caught on was exactly that. Furthermore the usage of the BSD license for BSD Unix was something that, imagine that, was in no small part due to the lobbying of people close to the FSF near the BSD developers of the time.

    I can give references for everything in the preceding paragraph, btw.