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."

Comments

Is the complexity worth it?

[Dlugar]

Unfortunately they didn't answer the big question I have:

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 ... what really do third-party developers gain from licensing their software GPLv3 over v2? Nothing but a bunch of headache, in my opinion.

Dlugar

Re:Is the complexity worth it?

[webmaster404]

Exactly, it seems like the GPLV3 was made in effort to stop Tivo and MS and Novell. That is it, add in a few things about patents and that is the GPLV3, it seems to be a "temporary" licence, one that only is any good in 2007-2008 when it will need rewritten again. While the GPL2 was a solid licence meant to defend code freedom rather then stop a few companies from exploiting flaws in the previous GPL.

Re:Is the complexity worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

what really do third-party developers gain from licensing their software GPLv3 over v2? Nothing but a bunch of headache, in my opinion. Quite the opposite... if you refuse to use the GPLv3 and decide to use the GPLv2 instead, you'll upset the Apostles of Free Software, bringing upon you the joys of:
A 1068 post thread berating you get you to dual license the code
A 68 post thread indicating a wish to subvert your license with a new license that you didn't choose for the ease of people who chose a license that is deliberately not compatible with yours
etc. Somewhere in there, Alexandre Oliva (board member of the FSFLA) indicated that he could just up and take GPLv2 code and relicense it GPLv3 anyway, regardless of what the actual authors of the code think about it. As a free software developer (my license of choice is still GPLv2), he, and the religious zealots of RMS, has done more to hurt my opinion of the FSF and the GPLv3 than any opponent of free software ever has. They aren't content that you develop free software, it has to be under their current favorite license and preferably donated to the FSF to make them happy.

Re:Is the complexity worth it?

[Ed Avis]

As new threats to freedom are identified, we should try to defend against them. Switching to a new licence is a hassle, but would you rather ignore the problem?

The GPL's goal is to make sure the software is free for all its users (not just free for some of them depending on whether the vendor deigned to give them the needed hardware keys or patent licences). That simple goal has not changed. If the licence text has become more complex, that is because the threats it needs to overcome have become more complex.

As long as you licence your code under 'GPLv3 or later', there won't be a big problem when the next attack on freedom comes and GPLv4 becomes necessary.

Re:Is the complexity worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The big problem is that we don't all agree that these things are threats.

If I release GPL'ed code and I own a patent on my algrothm, I expect to be able to enforce it. As the legal system stands now copyright on software is next to useless when it comes court time, and patents are the only viable option to protect certain kinds of assets.

From a business standpoint, it makes the GPL less adoptable.

Note: We currently have an idea that we are considering patenting and implementing in GPL, with the express intention being that people that don't want to agree to the GPL cannot use our idea without paying us a reasonable commercial fee. There is no legally solid way to stop reverse engineering except this (I personally believe the idea is good enough that other people will be attempting to copy us after we make a viable solution, and copyright can't stop that at all).

It matters not if you agree with software patents, as long as they are the only way to stop clean-room lookalike products, they are the only legally tractable solution to protecting yourself from instant clones when you make a good product that the "big guys" will want to copy. I would really like it if copyright did this, but that is not the current legal state of affairs in the US.

Sean

Re:Is the complexity worth it?

[gbutler69]

Much (maybe most) of the additional complexity is required for the GPL to be more legally sound in a world-wide market as opposed to just the U.S. Much of the GPLv2 language was legally sound for the U.S., but, somewhat less legally sound in other legal jurisdictions. The GPLv3 attempts to address this by using language that is recognized throughout the world to have very specific legal meanings.

Re:Like Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The difference being that any usage of a non-Microsoft product will be considered a loss by Microsoft, whereas the FLOSS community doesn't mind non-GPL open-source licenses as long as they maintain code freedom.

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.

Howso?

[einhverfr]

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.....

Re:One thing, at least, is simple

[einhverfr]

Cetainly St iGNUcious himself is all about faith and does not seem to care about logic or facts. The FSF is not just limited to such people however. I know a number of people who do advocate the GPL for reasons which are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

My own opinion is that RMS has. like President Bush, come to see the world in terms of universal conflict where Freedom must be sacrificed in order to be preserved. Hence the GFDL has clauses which are designed to allow the FSF and others to *force* that certain advoacy documents are included with technical documentation (forced advocacy is fundamentally at odds with freedom of speech), and asked the chief architect of GNU (Thomas Bushnell) to resign for publically stating a similar opinion.