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A Case Study In GPLv2 / GPLv3 Compatibility
An anonymous reader writes "A project called OpenChange is working to develop an open source client library for Microsoft Exchange. They are heavily dependent on Samba code for the underlying protocol support and have been forced to move to GPLv3 once Samba moved. This has gotten in the way of legally adding support to other software such as KDE, which is unwilling or unable to go GPLv3." It sounds like all the developers involved expect the GPLv2/GPLv3 issues to be resolved in time.
Update: 10/01 12:26 GMT by KD : Dan Shearer, of OpenChange and the Samba Team, wrote in to correct the anonymous submitter's mistaken implication that OpenChange moved reluctantly to GPLv3. Read on for his actual position.
I'm Dan Shearer of both the OpenChange project and the Samba Team, and I wrote the message on bacula-devel linked by anonymous' original post. I would like to correct the unfortunate impression given by anonymous that OpenChange has been reluctantly forced to change licenses because Samba has moved to the GPLv3. In fact, OpenChange see that the GPLv3 is entirely appropriate for Samba, and OpenChange plans to use the GPLv3 even when not necessarily required to do so by upstream licenses. The move to GPLv3 was one of two license changes we plan to announce on openchange.org in the next few days.
The specific issue highlighted in the post is not a general GPLv3/v2 incompatibility. Code which is licensed under the GPLv2 but no later version is incompatible with the GPLv3. There are a few significant examples of GPLv2-only code, including KDE as mentioned and also the Linux kernel, which cannot be linked to GPLv3 code. That is a matter of policy for those few projects. We would of course be delighted to be able to use their code as appropriate if they change their policy at some point, but we have no complaint if they do not choose to do so. The GPL offers many choices and this is one of them.
Most GPLv2 code includes the words "or any later version", which is a statement of trust by the licensor in the people who create those later versions. The GPLv3 was created as a community effort, a very large and representative community effort, and in that sense many people think that this trust has been maintained. Including the Samba Team and the OpenChange project. If you are unsure about this, go to archive.org and search for "Eben Moglen 2007", which will give you a choice of media and plain text for the summary talk in Edinburgh a day or two before the GPLv3 was released. We respect that there are different opinions on licensing including some who do not like the GPLv3, however it is indisputable that the GPLv3 is very much a community production rather than a statement from the FSF. That fact of community evolution supports the idea that the trust implied by "or any later version" has been maintained.
It might also be helpful to reflect on the history of OpenChange. OpenChange is an independent work from a team led by Julien Kerihuel built on the research and tools produced by the Samba Team. OpenChange has been the direct beneficiary of a lot of effort contributed by the Samba Team over the last four years. We strongly support Samba's use of the GPLv3 as being an appropriate response to the current legal environment.
The thread the anonymous poster linked to was in response to Kern Sibbald of the excellent Bacula project. Kern has his particular views, and we respect those views, but they are by no means general. (Readers may also like to read the entire thread on bacula-devel.) When we look at the numbers at Palamida we find many thousands of projects that OpenChange can link against, besides all the others with compatible licenses such as the Apache license. We don't feel very lonely :-)
Update: 10/01 12:26 GMT by KD : Dan Shearer, of OpenChange and the Samba Team, wrote in to correct the anonymous submitter's mistaken implication that OpenChange moved reluctantly to GPLv3. Read on for his actual position.
I'm Dan Shearer of both the OpenChange project and the Samba Team, and I wrote the message on bacula-devel linked by anonymous' original post. I would like to correct the unfortunate impression given by anonymous that OpenChange has been reluctantly forced to change licenses because Samba has moved to the GPLv3. In fact, OpenChange see that the GPLv3 is entirely appropriate for Samba, and OpenChange plans to use the GPLv3 even when not necessarily required to do so by upstream licenses. The move to GPLv3 was one of two license changes we plan to announce on openchange.org in the next few days.
The specific issue highlighted in the post is not a general GPLv3/v2 incompatibility. Code which is licensed under the GPLv2 but no later version is incompatible with the GPLv3. There are a few significant examples of GPLv2-only code, including KDE as mentioned and also the Linux kernel, which cannot be linked to GPLv3 code. That is a matter of policy for those few projects. We would of course be delighted to be able to use their code as appropriate if they change their policy at some point, but we have no complaint if they do not choose to do so. The GPL offers many choices and this is one of them.
Most GPLv2 code includes the words "or any later version", which is a statement of trust by the licensor in the people who create those later versions. The GPLv3 was created as a community effort, a very large and representative community effort, and in that sense many people think that this trust has been maintained. Including the Samba Team and the OpenChange project. If you are unsure about this, go to archive.org and search for "Eben Moglen 2007", which will give you a choice of media and plain text for the summary talk in Edinburgh a day or two before the GPLv3 was released. We respect that there are different opinions on licensing including some who do not like the GPLv3, however it is indisputable that the GPLv3 is very much a community production rather than a statement from the FSF. That fact of community evolution supports the idea that the trust implied by "or any later version" has been maintained.
It might also be helpful to reflect on the history of OpenChange. OpenChange is an independent work from a team led by Julien Kerihuel built on the research and tools produced by the Samba Team. OpenChange has been the direct beneficiary of a lot of effort contributed by the Samba Team over the last four years. We strongly support Samba's use of the GPLv3 as being an appropriate response to the current legal environment.
The thread the anonymous poster linked to was in response to Kern Sibbald of the excellent Bacula project. Kern has his particular views, and we respect those views, but they are by no means general. (Readers may also like to read the entire thread on bacula-devel.) When we look at the numbers at Palamida we find many thousands of projects that OpenChange can link against, besides all the others with compatible licenses such as the Apache license. We don't feel very lonely :-)
This is the sort of reason why I use FreeBSD, and try my best to use BSD-, MIT-, or zlib-licensed software as much as possible. Even just as a user, I prefer the freedom and certainty that those licenses bring. Frankly, I don't need the hassle of unintentionally running afoul of the GPL.
When it comes to the open source software that I develop and release, I always use the MIT license. That's just the safest thing for me to do, and the safest thing for those who want to use, modify and redistribute the software I've created. I'm not going to burden them with the many questions the GPLv2 and GPLv3 raise. I don't want them to have to read through pages and pages of legalese. I just want them to be able to use my software, modify it if they wish, and contribute back those changes (if they want to). The MIT license allows for that, and does so superbly.
The "or any future version" is optional for the developers. I have removed it from all of my software, as I do not want to license my code under rules which have not yet been written.
That said, I have no clue if KDE includes that line or not.
The issue is that the "future version" clause means that you can use the code under one version OR another, not that the newer versions supersede the old. In other words, if GPLv2 says doing X is okay but Y is not, and GPLv3 says X is bad, but Y is good, then you can use code licensed in that manner by doing X or Y (or both, or neither).
The effect of this is that if a project is GPLv3 licensed (like Samba), you can't use it to do X just because GPLv2 says you can. What this means for the project is that they can't build in GPLv2 code, because it allows things that GPLv3 forbids - they would have to break the terms of the 3 version to properly support version 2.
I see another reason why this is a non issue. They can use an older version of samba which was released under GPLv2. They don't even need to switch to other libraries. If they want the can even fork samba.
So the dependency tree looks like this:
Samba --OpenChange -- KDE
KDE operates on top of OpenChange, which operates on top of KDE. From the write up, OpenChange is "heavily dependent on Samba code for the underlying protocol support". So they mix in outside (Samba) code which changed license, and thus are forced to change the license. Fair enough - they want the free lunch, they have to use the license specified by the guy who wrote the code.
What doesn't make any sense is that OpenChange cannot support KDE now. Of course they can. As long as they don't share any code, they can be licensed independently.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
It is this kind of confusion that could lead to many great ideas to be stillborn. But, maybe that is the point.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I dislike the GPLv3, but I use GPLv2 for everything I write myself. I know there aren't many out there like me, but if there are enough, I think it might cause yet another regrettable split. Are the benefits of the GPLv3 over v2 (which seem very minimal if existant at all) worth the downsides? Only time will tell.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
Sure, they could. But then we ask, why should they have to? And the answer is: solely because of legal shenanigans.
It'd be one thing if there was a technological issue at play here. But it's not. The main problem here is completely a human-created problem. Here we have massive incompatibility between one version of a license and the next. And this is supposedly a license whose creators and advocates say is meant to encourage source code to be modified, used freely, and readily shared with the rest of the community.
I sure hope that corporate CTOs and CIOs don't hear of this. This is the very thing that brings doubt into their minds, harms the adoption of OSS, and thus limits the contribution of changes back to the community. It makes me want to start licensing all of my software under the MIT license, where I know the terms are sensible.
Did you totally miss the part of the GPL that says it doesn't cover use? You can't run afoul of the GPL merely by using software.
As the GPL puts it:
> When it comes to the open source software that I develop and release, I always use the MIT license.
And I thank you for that. I don't care what your motives, I appreciate those who share code.
But please don't spread FUD about the GPL. Is that too much to ask?
Linus himself does not think GPLv3 is a good thing. So why do people keep adopting it.
People are adopting gpl3 for some of the same reasons they adopted gpl2, which is to ensure that users are free to modify their software to suit their needs.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
You are arguing something different than the GP - you are saying that for any given line of code, the probability of it being written by a paid programmer is high, what he is saying is that the probability that a given FOSS programmer is paid is low. For example, if 5% of the people did 95% of the work, and those 5% were paid, then both of your claims are correct. I suspect it is probably something more like 10-25%, though not all paid, and 75-90%, but I no data to back that up. What he is concerned about is that for those who are only able to contribute a couple hours a week, spending even 15 minutes trying to figure out what license to release under, he will have lost 1/8th of his time. The ability to change the license away from original intent is quite troubling, as nice as it is to be able to maintain compatibility in licensing. This is similar to donors to foundations/universities wanting control of where their donations are used versus where the foundation/universities would like to spend their money. The catch here is that the university can replace general funds with donated and effectively remove the restrictions for most small and medium donations, whereas in the licenses, the restrictions and wishes of the creator are not removable.
Perhaps, but exactly what relevance does that have to this discussion?
I mean, you know it's not at all the type of use I was talking about, and like you point out, even the FSF makes sure that it's not an actual problem in practice by using the LGPL for libraries.
It's only natural for people to want to protect what's important to them. But why must we begrudge each other for protecting those rights most important to them? The GPL protects the end users, the BSD license protects the people using the code itself. There's no need to attribute evil motives to either side or to avoid running code simply because it's under the "wrong" license.
Frankly, I find that just a bit silly.
I'm amazed there are people out there thinking this kind of behaviour is fair game. Just because somebody makes their source available, doesn't mean they want you to pass off their work as your own.
It really is very simple:
BSD says "Do what you want. I don't care."
GPLv2 says "You got the source, so should your customers."
GPLv3 says "Stop jumping through loopholes! You got the source, so should your customers."
Commercial licenses say "You want the source?!?! Go f*%$ yourself."
Personally I would never BSD license any of my code. There are too many people in the world that will happily rip it off.
In other words, if RMS decides to make the GPL7 with a copy of the Microsoft Vista EULA (or even the BSDL) -- Not only could you renounce it as 'not GPL' as envisioned in the license, but you could conceivably sue him for breach of trust/contract.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.