Slashdot Mirror
FSF Compliance Lab Addresses GPLv3 Questions
GeekyBodhi writes "Brett Smith, the licensing compliance engineer at FSF's Free Software Licensing and Compliance Lab held a public question and answer session in an IRC meeting last night. At the meeting Smith addressed questions regarding various sections of GPLv3 (Linux.com shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) including Section 7 (additional rights), and Section 11 (patents and patent protection), and explained how the incompatibility between GPLv2 and GPLv3 doesn't rule out any interaction between differently licensed programs."
Not quite in either case, though it's fair to say that neither have seen the adoption rates that their respective creators expected or wanted. Furthermore a lack of adoption presents a real (though relatively small) threat to each's (is each's a word?) near-monopoly/de-facto standard (Windows in Desktop Operating Systems and GPL in Open Source Licenses)
In the end when the smoke clears I think that both will ultimately succeed (for better or for worse) but you will end up with a slightly larger percentage of Desktops running non-Microsoft operating systems and a slightly larger percentage of open source projects released under a non GPL license.
Unfortunately they didn't answer the big question I have:
... what really do third-party developers gain from licensing their software GPLv3 over v2? Nothing but a bunch of headache, in my opinion.
Why do they think all the additional complexity of the GPLv3 is needed? After all, wasn't that one of the biggest complaints about the GPLv2, that it was too complex to understand? And now you have all this extra language and extra penalties and extra permissions that, in my estimation, don't give you a better license. It doesn't prevent Tivo-ization (and I don't think you really can without even worse side effects), it doesn't prevent Microsoft/Novell-type deals, it doesn't prevent software patent FUD against Free Software
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
It's important to remember that the FLOSS camp has no particular attachment to a particular license. They want freedom (via source code). Any license that fills that role makes them happy. In the FLOSS world, a project using GPLv3 is a win, but so is a project using GPLv2, apache, etc.
Stallman doesn't appear to see it that way, although I guess it has to be said that he represent the - shall we say, more hardline end of the spectrum
my sig could kick your sig's arse...
Yep.
One of the things that really made GPLv2 approachable was it's directness and simplicity. I think it also gave it it's strength.
GPLv3 is one of those lawyer sounding licenses. They try to specify everything (ie, instead of saying all colors, they'll write all colors including red, orange, green, blue and any other generally considered colors not named).
But reading it over, I'm not sure it buys much, and it certainly makes it much harder to understand. And that's a real shame.
And the Tivoization issue is a bit of a red herring I think. Tivo should be required to distribute the software, so others could create a Tivo device themselves. I'm not sure it fits the original principals to force tivo to open their hardware box. It's interesting, by trying to restrict it you get all sorts of ugly side effects.
I'm looking forward to a simple 2-3 page license again in the future.
I just simply trust that the people who are working on the GPL know what they're doing because I am 100% sure that they have _my_ best interest at heart.
They have been proving that now for many years.
Whether or not Tivoization matters depends on the principals you start with.
One set says that you may do whatever you wish with the code, bu you must also share the code in return.
The other set, and the set that has *always* been Stallman's goal, says that you may do whatever you wish, as long as you do not interfere with another's ability to do whatever they wish.
For developer's who want to do the first, the GPL is pretty airtight (slight patent issues, though nobody has instituted a destructive exploit along the lines of the MS/Novell patent deal yet, and deserving of a GPL 2.1 more than a GPL 3)
For the second goal, the GPL3 *is* a big deal, because it means protecting the end user from being locked down when they buy a cell phone/Tivo/Server.
Yes, the GPLv3 has poor adoption, but that's because the GPLv2 had high adoption by people who fell in the first camp, when the GPLv2 had always been meant for the purposes of the second philosophy.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
I hope my company sends a few members of its legal team to find out more. We use Linux a lot, and many key Linux system pieces (such as GCC) are moving to GPL v3. An email broadcast went out at work, telling us specifically:
It goes on to enumerate those fears. One of the more alarmist-sounding points brought up in the email is: "Ambiguous language that could grant patent rights to other companies, even if [company] only uses the software internally."
I really hope the FSF clarifies the points our lawyers have raised. (I hope and imagine our lawyers have taken it up w/ the FSF.) I can totally see our company not releasing software under GPL v3, nor incorporating GPL v3 software into our products. But banning the use of GPL v3 software entirely? Hopefully these sorts of kinks work their way out. In the meantime, I won't be updating my compiler right away. *sigh*
--Joe
Program Intellivision!
Let me get this straight...
In order to attempt to quell the fears of developers and businesses, FSF decided to hold a Q&S in....IRC?
Kind of shows how out of touch with reality the FSF is. The majority of decision-makers don't even know what IRC is....much less the people with the investment capital.
I'm curious to see if there were any answers about how section 7 interacts with BSD or other licensed dependencies, or how "you can distribute this freely, except that you can't distribute it loaded on to a certain class of device" doesn't infringe freedom to redistribute, or why the patent stuff is so very specific in what kind of deals it affects.
I'm also curious about how "the source is out there, but patented and unusable" is an OK result for the patent issue (as per the article), but "the source is out there, but my device won't run it" is not OK. Or even how it makes sense considered with claims that companies can remove your freedom by making closed-source programs based on an open program. The source is still out there, what freedom's been lost (share-and-share-alike is a good reason for not allowing this, but making it an issue of freedom kinda makes me think WTF)?
The FSF addresses the ability to remove additional permissions and distribute under a more restrictive license. The GPL v3 is written as if this can be done for any piece of a covered work and does *not* suggest that the license reverts when that piece is later extracted. This has lead me to conclude that the GPL v3 is incompatible with permissive licenses such as the BSDL because:
1) The BSDL addresses *all* downstream recipients of covered copyrights and
2) The BSDL itself is an invariant license which follows those covered copyrights.
Thus I argue that these permissive licenses essentially limit the ways in which section 7 paragraph 2 can be meaningfully excersized. One cannot just take some BSD files include them verbatem, and change the license as one desires to do.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Indeed your company's lawyers _do_ need to go to some training somewhere. They have obviously been listening to some FUD somewhere. There is _no_ language in GPL3 that even pretends to address use without distribution, beyond the whole "yep, use it however you want", so there can be no "Ambiguous language that could grant patent rights to other companies, even if [company] only uses the software internally."
Among other things, all the patent grants require your company to have granted patent license rights to a select set of recipients while purporting to deny those rights to others. Since a patent holder can not be said to grant licenses to itself, internal use would not be a selective grant. And so on.
Now IANAL, and if you take legal advice from strangers in internet posts, then you are an idiot. Then again, if your lawyers are not competent to understand "patent license", and if they are _that_ susceptible to FUD, then _they_ are idiots and you need to have _them_ replaced.
There is plenty of plain language in the GPL3 that even a non-lawyer can understand that the license kicks and binds you only when you do the things the license grants.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
For example, the inclusion of such clauses by the Apache Software License does not seem to make businesses less eager to donate code there....
However, the general argument still stands. In particular, there are sections in the GPL v3 which seem to me to be lawyerbombs or litigation magnets in that they appear to any reasonable reading to make license compatibility an open question, In particular, go read section 7, paragraph 2 of the GPL v3 and ask yourself if it can be applied to BSD-licensed software where the license grant must be reproduced exactly for covered copyrights (BSDL is not copyleft because it *only* follows copyrights licensed under that license and does not provide restrictions on licensing other copyrights added for derivative works).
I would argue that the MIT license is incompatible for the same reason. Namely because one cannot take BSD or MIT-licensed copyrights and change the terms on them later because the author grants these rights to all downstream users. The only answers that I have been able to get from Mr Moglen seem to be that it doesn't matter because you could get such a suit dismissed for reasons of standing, but that ought to make people nervous.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
GPL compliance is very easy to understand: Don't BAD (Be A Dick)
... that's just Being A Dick (BAD).
... that's just Being A Dick (BAD).
... Being A Dick (BAD).
You're getting the effort and very hard work of very talented people who would cost way too much to actually hire full time. They contribute their labor of love for the benefit of the community; nay, world. These people aren't interested in making a buck off of you, forcing you to pay to keep what you've already got, or locking you into their vendorship for life; they simply want people to be able to do something. That's it!
So, when you're taking advantage of this generosity, the only thing you need to understand is: Don't Be A Dick (BAD)!
- Don't try to make an unfair profit off of somebody else's work. Sure, you can provide services like custom modifications, technical support, etc. But don't try to compile it up and send it off without the source code
- Don't try to throw extra locks on it. You took it from the commons, it needs to return to the commons. Mechanical measures of restricting use (Tivoization) or legal measures of restricting use (Software Patents)
- Don't try to strongarm people into paying you protection money, or else . That's just extortion and
It's pretty simple: If you give it away, make sure the _end users_ have MORE rights and MORE capabilities than they did when you got it.
Anything else is BAD (BEING A DICK!)
Thank you!
"licensing compliance engineer"
Wow. I don't seem to recall that being an option when I was an undergrad looking to choose a particular discipline.
Tivo does distribute the software. The issue is that they include in their device some chip that checks if the Tivo software has been modified; if it has been modified, the device won't work. This prevents the user from using and modifying the software, rights that he/she should have under the GPL. Version 3 of the GPL prevents this.
It states that you can remove additional permissions when you *convey* the software. Conveyance doesn't add copyrights but it requries copyright permission.
The problem is that many of us believe that this is not allowed by permissive licenses in general-- that the permissive license always follows those specific copyrights which are licensed under it and that this is passed on to downstream users. This isn't an issue with the GPL v2 because when you create a derivative work, you add your own copyrights which can be licensed under the GPL v2 (and hence the work as a whole is licensed under the GPL v2 even if certain things could be extracted and used under the BSDL). Same with Microsoft's use of BSDL code-- they haven't changed the license on those specific copyrights, they have only enforced their own copyrights under different terms.
Suppose I license a program under the GPL v3 but also include a 7(b) legal notice which states:
"The author of this software hereby provides permission to all downstream recipients, without regard to the excersize of section 7, paragraph 2 removal of additional permissions, the right to extract the code from the following functions and use in any works under any other licenses provided that this notice is maintained."
Is that a valid section 7(b) legal notice? Is it an additional permission which can be removed? Is it an additional restriction which can be ignored? I believe that the BSDL, MITL, and similar licenses are of a similar nature.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
if he is a licensed practitioner of law and this is a cosmetic change of name or if I am as competent to speak on these matters as he is.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
If you distribute GPL v2 software and then sue for patent infrignement while you still are distributing the software, you are violating the authors' copyrights.
Furthermore, under the GPL v3 I can do a lot of things I couldn't under the GPL v2:
1) Release beta versions of software under NDA's provided that the contract also stipulates that they are receiving the software solely for the purpose of providing QA services for me by testing their own software against mine.
2) Use hypervisors and aggregated updates (for components in other VM's) to prevent updated software from doing anything (the software isn't interfered with in any way, but everything that it needs to talk to is missing if you provide your own update!)
3) Use hypervisors and other VMs to create DRM which can't be circumvented by accessing the source code of the kernel (because the decryption/hardware interfaces occur in another VM).
Seems like a lot of work to go to for not a lot more freedom of the end user.....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
if you stop conveying the software, can you retract your patent license to those whom you conveyed the software too?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Bottom line: so many people misunderstand or misinterpret v2 on a regular basis that it's really hard for me to believe that v3 is going to make things noticeably worse. People are still going to be posting about how the GPL means you can't charge money and you're going to be forced to release all of your company's code. Dummies will remain dummies. And I think I grok both versions pretty well, so I really don't see a problem.
Of course, it may just be that I'm old enough to remember the huge controversies and flamewars about v2 when that was new. Kids today seem to accept it as standard and noncontroversial, but it was as despised and reviled in its day as v3 is now.
People who do advocate the GPL in whatever form are likely going to continue to do so. People who don't, won't.
I used to engage in schizoid ranting about this topic, and admittedly still do, from time to time...but the thing that I've at least tried to realise is that when you're dealing with a cult of the same type as say Amway or the Church of Scientology, (which IMHO the FSF and its' followers are) if you don't agree with their belief system, you can make any kind of appeal you like, and it isn't going to make any difference whatsoever.
People need IMHO to realise that about the FSF. If one of them or their followers tries to sell you on the idea of the GPL or act as an apologist for it, realise that you're dealing with a cultist. Fact is irrelevant. Logic is irrelevant. The only thing in their mind that is relevant is you becoming an additional member of the Collective. (The euphemistic references to such as a "community" is the proverbial spoonful of sugar which they hope will cause the dogmatic medicine to go down easier)
Likewise, if you're attempting to argue with them that any of the more permissive licenses are inherently less restrictive than the GPL, you truly might as well not bother. Mind control is utterly impervious to any kind of reasoned argument which you might be able to construct. Forcible deprogramming might work, but any attempt at rational argument won't.
What can we do about this? Only one thing; route around it. As far as FOSS is concerned, use anything and everything we can that isn't associated with the FSF at all. I can remember feeling enormously encouraged when reading about OpenBSD's attempts at integrating and developing another C compiler. The C compiler has long been the last major piece of the puzzle necessary to having an open source operating system that isn't affiliated with the Stallmanite cult in any way whatsoever.
The license text notice of the MIT License, the BSD License, and the ISC License all provide language offering a grant of certain copyrights. Excersize of section 7(2) restricts those rights which are granted by removing those permissions beyond the scope of the GPL v3.
Note that dependencies can only be used if they are compatible with the GPL v3 by allowing such relicensing provided that binary distribution is done (because when this happens, the dependencies' source must be part of the Corresponding Source and that work must be under the GPL v3.
EIther the BST, MIT, and ISC licenses allow you to change the license on the entire work (for example MIT Kerberos, BIND, PostgreSQL or similar) without adding any copyright-protected elements to the work and hence they are compatible, or the licenses restrict excersize of the grant to remove those additional permissions.
Interestingly, the GPL v2 has no linking clause as the GPL v3 does. Hence I see no reason why a GPL v2 program can't link to a GPL v3 program (this seems safer than getting into arguments about what permission removal means for BSDL dependnecies).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The GPL v3 basically says that for certain classes of devices, one must:
1) Provide installation instructions
2) Not interfere with the execution of a modified binary.
However, it still allows for aggregation in distribution, and so there is no reason why one can't require that a full aggregate of software (the full system image including hypervisor and all vm's) gets installed at once and that this collective or aggregate work must be signed as a whole. It thus allows unrestricted execution of a binary in a vacuum which more or less deprives it of any useful input or output because components on the other ends of pipes are simply not there.
"You may not interfere with so-and-so's ability to speak in a given auditorium" does not preclude making sure nobody *else* is in that auditorium.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Given the fact that Stallman is not above making "forced advocacy" a part of the free speech he wants to associate with Free Software..... See my latest journal entry for details.
This is an occupational hazard of a conflict mentality, and Stallman's view of Freedom is no different from the Bush Administration's.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Yeah, I noticed that.
How many people immediately get the impression that this is like watching Fox News?
"Why do they hate freedom?"
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
rm won't let me delete files that belong to someone else! That's a GPL v3 violation!!!!!!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" [etc, etc, etc) The last part falls within 7-3a) ("...Disclaiming warranty or limiting liability differently from the terms of sections 15 and 16 of this License...), I don't think you disagree with that. The (c) part is goes without saying. All that is left is: Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies The licence stipulates that the copyright notice and the permission notice must appear in all copues. This falls under 7-3b( (...requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it...). This is an aditional non-permissive term that as per 7-3 (...Notwithstanding any other provision of this License...) and 7-4 (...All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further restrictions" within the meaning of section 10...) which can't be removed. If the ISC licence merely said... Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted. ... then all this would be moot since you could simply take the code and slap any licence you whished on top of it (that's actually what the PD licence says, more or less). The ISC licence is differente because it has that additional restriction. The "grant of certain copyrights" you mentioned isn't by itself something that is guaranteed to be available downstream, it is made that was by the additional restriction (...provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies...). Without that, those grants wouldn't be a problem in any way since any usage would be allowed.
The rest of your points are secondary if these initial assumption isn't there, so if you disagree with the above I can see how you think that you can't do certain things.
That is my point. This is exactly my concern over license compatibility.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
that there are legitimate business reasons for choosing the GPL (at least for version 2).
THe basic issue is that, while both the GPL and BSD licenses can effectively erode comercial competition, the latter requires a larger and more viable community to make it work. Hence while PostgreSQL has been able to kill every closed source verion that wanted to compete directly with it, releasing a previously proprietary add-in might be a harder sell if you are smaller than, say, EnterpriseDB... The GPL thus protects businesses that want to go partly open/free but want to retain control.
The flip side of this is that you can do a proprietary product which happens to be licensed under the GPL (for example, QT, MySQL, SQL-Ledger). You can't do that with a BSD license.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
GPL2 is a license, an so is GPL3. It has its merits and drawbacks. You don't have to follow the cult to use them. I, personally, like GPL2, while I don't share RMS views in general. And I hope GPL3 will turn even better, although only years of practical use will show if it's true. Treat GPLn as a contract, not a philosophy and the cult will have no place in your life:)
Yeah, I think the difficulty in nailing down this "hole" illustrates perhaps that it's not a good fit for a software license.
Of course Isn't that about 2x as long now?
And perhaps the reason you had to explain the GPLv2 is because folks actually read it
I don't think as many people are going to read it v3 fully, assuming that there is some elasticity to the desire to read licenses that depend both on their length and their use of legal language.
That said, the truth is it's really wonderful to have people putting this much effort into licenses, and having the choice, which is what it still is to pick a license remains, so I do think a big thanks are in order to the EFF. Plus it's fun to see their new AGPL and FDL licenses. Perhaps this will become the absolute standard that even the big embedded market starts using.
Another thing I've come to realize is that a lot of people read and reacted to the first draft, which was I think the one that really had a lot of stuff simply wrong. I wonder how many folks read up on the subsequent releases. The only thought there would have been that I think you could have written the same ultimate license text, but if the building of it had been more open, and you hadn't started with a text that was so off base and put so many people off to start with, you'd have been better off.
Who knows.
the gplv3 tries to dictate engineering and product design
it asks for blind faith and that copyright be assigned to it
it is on record as not caring about the freedom of developers, only users
if you sign over your code to them and they find you in violation, they'll take you to court and take your house.
smelly bearded bullies