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?

[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?

[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.

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.