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Survey Says GPLv3 Is Shunned

Posted by kdawson on from the opinion-is-divided dept.

willdavid writes in to note a survey of open source developers conducted by Evans Data that indicates a real rift in the community over GPLv3. The survey was based on in-depth interviews with 380 open source developers and no estimated margin of error was given. "Just 6 percent of developers working with open-source software have adopted the new GNU General Public License version 3... Also, two-thirds say they will not adopt GPLv3 anytime in the next year, and 43 percent say they will never implement the new license. Almost twice as many would be less likely to join a project that uses GPLv3 than would be likely to join... [Evans Data's CEO said] 'Developers are confused and divided about [the restrictions GPLv3 imposes], with fairly equal numbers agreeing with the restrictions, disagreeing with them, or thinking they will be unenforceable.'"

6 of 382 comments (clear)

  1. Remember! by heinousjay · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Those restrictions are for your freedom. It is important to take freedom away to protect it. Truly allowing freedom would allow freedom to be taken away, and we can't allow that, so we've taken away some freedom to allow true freedom to flourish.

    I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't understand that perfectly.

    And I'm sure I'll get modded down, but before you do that, read through my first paragraph carefully and tell me what I've said differently than the GNU people.

    --
    Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    1. Re:Remember! by cromar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      GPL protects the freedom of the code, not the freedom of the developer. Big difference! If you want developer freedom, use the BSD license or some such. Different tools for different problems :)

    2. Re:Remember! by Bogtha · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but if you are, then please be aware that taking freedoms away to protect other freedoms is the basis of all law. You aren't free to hit me because you've had that freedom taken away from you.

      Unless you are an anarchist, you really have no basis for criticising the GPL in this regard, because you agree with this logic applied to different areas.

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  2. Oh dear! by mmcuh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh dear! Another rift in the community, etc. Really, how many articles of this type have been posted to Slashdot in the last few weeks?

    And the statement "Just 6 percent of developers working with open-source software have adopted the new GNU General Public License version 3" is obviously false, since the vast majority of GPL-licensed software have copyright notices that say that the software is available "under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version" - which includes GPL version 3.

    What is this "Evans Data Corporation"? It would be interesting to see any other press releases they have written.

  3. Re:Slow adoption is to be expected by fotbr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not necessarily. GPL version 3 only provisions do not apply to it, unless it is changed to be licensed under GPL 3 (only, or "or later").

  4. Re:Slow adoption is to be expected by DragonWriter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My point was that all these projects can be counted as GPLv3 projects, or is it that important that I formally fork such a project to be counted in the numbers?


    Well, yes, if it is not currently licensed with the restrictions in the GPLv3 (but merely allows other people to relicense their own redistribution that way), it is inaccurate to describe it as a GPLv3 project. I mean, by your argument, every project under a GPLv3-compatible license (or, presumably, in the public domain like SQLite) should be counted as a GPLv3 project because someone could conceivably redistribute a derivative of it under the GPLv3 at some point in the future.