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Torvalds Puts Support Behind GPL2 Linux
Christiangrays writes "Linux creator Linus Torvalds has used an interview being made public by the Linux Foundation to stress that version 2 of the GPL still makes the most sense for the Linux kernel over the newer GPL version 3. GPL 3, which was released last year by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), reflects the FSF's goals while GPL 2 closely matches what Torvalds thinks a licence should do, Torvalds said. "I want to pick the licence that makes the most sense for what I want to do. And at this point in time, Version 2 matches what I think we want to do much, much better than Version 3," said Torvalds, who is now a fellow at the foundation. He was interviewed in late-October by Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin."
We are just clipping Tux's wings a little bit. It is not like he can fly anyway.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Before everyone starts arguing about the merits of GPLv3, let's remember that it's just the license for the kernel. It's not going to be changing much when used in proprietary consumer devices. On the other hand, if it's not going to change it much, why lock it up? Kinda a moot point...
I don't believe so. I'll be half-assed and make somebody else verify this for me as I'm too busy to grok the kernel license at the moment, but I believe that the GPL v2 found in the kernel sources leaves off the part that says "or any later revision."
SIG: HUP
a: This is very old news, from back in October, just rehashed to get more clicks.
b: It is irrelevant. Even if Linus loved the GPLv3, there is so much code contributed to the Linux kernel without a transfer of copyright and under GPLv2 only terms that it couldn't be changed anyway.
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Yes, because Linus represents the views of all linux programmers.
A lot of people characterise Torvalds as being pragmatic as opposed to Stallman's idealism, but Stallman is pragmatic too, he just looks further ahead than Torvalds. This short-sightedness doesn't pay off. Stallman warned about the BitKeeper problem, but Torvalds didn't do anything about it until the situation blew up in his face. The FSF started requiring a paper trail for GNU contributions, Torvalds didn't follow their lead until SCO started suing.
I'm not a fan of GPLv3, but I can't understand why people consistently deride Stallman and worship Torvalds. Stallman is consistently proven right.
Statements like these are not new. Linus has been avoiding GPL 3 for a while now, even though he says he likes the final license better than some of the early drafts. It's really all to obscure the fact that he can't change the license even if he wanted to. He would have to control the copyrights for all contributed code in order to switch from GPL 2 to any other license, including GPL 3. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your option of the new revision) he does not have the power to do this.
From FSF (This is the meat of the patent section.)
Discriminatory patents are restricted as follows: A patent license is "discriminatory" if it does not include within the scope of its coverage, prohibits the exercise of, or is conditioned on the non-exercise of one or more of the rights that are specifically granted under this License. You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which you make payment to the third party based on the extent of your activity of conveying the work, and under which the third party grants, to any of the parties who would receive the covered work from you, a discriminatory patent license (a) in connection with copies of the covered work conveyed by you (or copies made from those copies), or (b) primarily for and in connection with specific products or compilations that contain the covered work, unless you entered into that arrangement, or that patent license was granted, prior to 28 March 2007.
Wait, so GPL 2 is "locking code up?" Where were all these people who had strong anti-GPL 2 sentiments before 3 was released? Was it not good enough then, or are we just angry because the FSF is telling us to be?
So now, suddenly, since there is a new version of the GPL, anyone who stays on the old version hates software freedom?
Wow. That's kind of an extreme way to look at it. Especially since RMS himself said that there's nothing wrong with continuing to use GPL V2, if that's what a project wants to do. If I were RMS, I would forbid the packaging of any GNU code with a GPLv2 GNU/Linux. Without altering the language of the GPL, simply put, he can't.
My blog
More to the point, this is much ado about nothing. Even if Mr. Torvalds "saw the light" and decided he wanted to move to GPL v3, this would be impossible in practical terms since Linux has no copyright escrow agent similar to the FSF for GNU. In other words, to move code licensed to Linux under GPL v2 (only) to GPL v3 requires re-licensing by the original author -- which you may never be able to find. So, you may safely assume that Linux will be GPL v2 until it is re-written from scratch.
Before everyone starts arguing about the merits of GPLv3, let's remember that it's just the license for the kernel. It's not going to be changing much when used in proprietary consumer devices. On the other hand, if it's not going to change it much, why lock it up? Kinda a moot point...
The real question, is how would a move to GPLv3 benefit Linux? If the answer is not at all, then by keeping it a GPLv2 helps make everyone's life simpler. Any change in license would in certain cases mean that Linux would have to revetted by legal departments in a number of companies and for TiVO-like products a real pain in the neck.
In many ways GPLv3 is a reaction to DRM, but getting all religious about things is not going to be the solution either, IMHO.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The Linux Kernel GPLv2 deliberately leaves off the "or later", because that gives control of your liscence to some other entity (the FSF).
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OMG, it... is... ON!!!
L. Ron Torvalds has just declared all out war on Richard Stallman and his radical attempts to conquer all software via the GPLv3.
These two guys are, like, the Gods of FOSS. Who will win this epic, climactic struggle? The FOSS world is obviously not big enough for the two of them... so who will win? Will this Clash of the Titans bring down all the hopes and dreams of the FOSS world? Will pasty white nerds be furiously waging war from their keyboards? Which side will be the first to hire the veteran "warblogger" mercenaries away from the GOP?
I don't have any answers, but I've got a ton of popcorn and a strong desire to watch the inevitable sissy-fight!
Let's get ready to RUMBLE!!!!!
That's true, but we're not discussing that difference. The difference that we're mostly discussing here is that if you produce hardware that uses open source code, you have to let the user run modified code on that device. Tivo uses linux on all their boxes but they have a checksum to make sure that if the software is modified, it won't run it. They do this because they are required to make sure that you can't use their device for widespread copyright infringement, to shield themselves from the MPAA.
Stallman, in the meantime, sees Tivo using their software but not allowing people to modify it and run it on their device, gets his panties in a bunch and decides that they need to modify the license to keep device manufacturers from doing that.
Linus, on the other hand, takes his evil corporate leanings and decides that hardware is different from software and that hardware manufacturers are, therefore, different from software developers and proclaims that hardware manufacturers should be able to do whatever they want.
Slashdot, in the meanwhile, get's a huge boner off of the conflict, especially Zonk, who's tickled pink that he doesn't even have to give misleading headlines and summaries to inflame people.
Welcome to the license wars, where both sides are populated by fanatical idiots. Stallman, in particular, gets on my nerves because he's become nothing more than pontificating mushroom. At least Torvalds remains a productive member of society, even if he's a bit of troll in his own right.
The nice thing about lots of licenses is that you, as the developer or development team, can pick the one that you feel best serves your project's interests. It seems to me the license wars are the very dichotomy of the idea of an open license, because they're all about trying to force developers down a specific path.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
A license change (alteration of the terms of the GFDL) was recently done for Wikipedia which is a much bigger problem than the kernel due to the fact that it has tens of thousands of times as many copyright holders. FSF cooperated. It proceeded very quietly.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The GPL3 doesn't protect against patent claims by entities that have not distributed the particular code released under that license.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
And even the GPL v2 says quite clearly that you can't distribute GPL2 code without passing on the full GPL rights and cites a patent license as an example of something that might prevent this.
As I understand it, the patent stuff in the GPL 3 was an attempt to prevent attempts to fudge around this with shenanigans such as:
I promise almost certainly maybe not to sue your immediate customers over any intellectual property of mine which may or may not turn up in this code but this doesn't violate GPL2 because I'm not actually going to sign a legal document saying that you need a patent license from us or tell you which patents we mean even if my colleague was spouting off at a press conference about how many of our patents it violates..."
...although trying to anticipate and block variations on that sort of FUD seems like nailing jelly to a tree to me.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I don't really see how. I mean, if you're worried about giving an algorithm up, maybe you shouldn't be releasing the source in the first place?
Don't take that as a "we don't want your code" argument. It's more of an appeal to your own sanity. If that algorithm really is so critical to your success that you need to patent it, it's probably not something you want other people to know how to implement.
If the project accepted that code, then yeah, pretty much. That's why people are so wary of Mono.
However, there are other rather large changes with the GPLv3 -- mostly, closing loopholes which revolve around the definition of "distribution" and the usefulness of "source code". Distribution is the easier one to explain -- if you're running a website on open source (Apache, etc), you are technically not "distributing" it, even if you get a million hits per day. Because you're not distributing it, you don't need to accept the GPL, and you don't need to give source code to visitors of your site.
As for "source code", the GPL was originally written not because Stallman wants to see the source, but because he wants to be able to modify any program he's running -- the original story is that Stallman made a modification to a printer driver (because they provided source, as a matter of consideration), but later, when the lab got a new printer, it did not come with source, so he could not make that modification.
Linus claims to use the GPL for a different reason: He only wants to be able to see the source -- see what people are doing with his code -- and then re-incorporate any useful changes they made back into the project.
GPLv3 is a problem because it closes some loopholes by which you could get the source code, but not be able to modify that same program and run it on the same hardware. This is the "Tivoization" argument -- Tivo gave you source code, but no actual Tivo player would let you compile and run a modified version. Specifically, the hardware would use checksums to verify that the software had not been modified.
Linus has no problem with Tivo -- in fact, he likes it, because his software gets used for more things, and he still gets source code to play with on non-Tivo devices. Stallman hates Tivo, because he can't buy a Tivo and start tinkering with it, so the source code, while useful, no longer serves that original purpose of the GPL.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
RMS is absolutely brilliant, no doubt about it. Anyone who has known him in real life can attest to his brilliance. He body of work speaks for itself, he has consistently predicted things that would happen and proposed solutions. His being the "smartest guy in the room" gives him tremendous abilities to logically predict trends well before those of us normally gifted" people, and with the ability to look like magic divination to those that are of normal intelligence or lower. These facts are not in dispute.
However, for all RMS's brilliance, his lack of social grace, to put it mildly, undermines him as the CEO of the Free Software/Open Source Enterprise. Indeed, the fact that his "movement" was hijacked and renamed Open Source, and his operating system was hijacked and renamed from GNU to Linux, is a testament to that.
Big companies don't hire CEO's that can forecast the future. CEO's hire rooms of people that do that. Companies hire CEOs that can communicate the vision of the company to the outside world AND the people inside the company. The forecasting ability of Stallman is tremendous, but the lack of communication skills is devastating for him as leader of the movement. It's tragic, because he wants to hold the reigns because this is 100% all his idea, but he's a lousy spokesman for his own ideas, and lost control by not finding a better one.
The Biggest Elephant in the Room: Copyright ownership and standing
The most important thing to the FSF is copyright assignment to maintain a single owner to have standing to enforce. If this is so important to free software, why was that not incorporated into the license. You could have a provision that did roughly the following:
1. You are free to modify for your own use, no need to even agree to license
2. You are free to distribute modifications, if you do, you agree that your modifications are a derivative work, and all copyright is maintained by the maintainer of the software (define this in the license, first person to distribute becomes maintainer, unless a new maintainer is named by them)
3. You are free to fork, but you have to rename the software, you then become maintainer of the fork, owning all derivative changes from here on out of your version
That might not have been an obvious problem in the 80s, but given the Emacs vs. Xemacs ownership of code issue (Xemacs could use Emacs, but not vice versa because FSF requires ownership of all copyrights), arguments about relicensing, etc., this was obvious by the time v3 was created. Some solution should have been found to maintain single ownership of projects for the purpose of standing that didn't require a lot of paperwork.
Examples of this:
1. GNU vs. Linux... Linux sounds like Unix (people knew Unix, liked Unix, but couldn't afford Unix), and the fact that it's a play on a name is irrelevant. Digital Unix, Xenix, HP-UX, etc., all prepped people for a *ux/*ix name for a Unix. GNU? Hard to pronounce, a silly inside joke, etc., lousy brand. The system didn't become Linux instead of GNU by fluke, Linux's superior name and brand displaced GNU.
2. Free Software / Open Source: Open Source is descriptive... there is more to it than the source being viewable, but that's the main action item, the rest is details. Free Software? confusingly vague, similar to Freeware (an already existing term with a lousy brand), and required a "manifesto" to understand. In fact, the existence of a "manifesto" was problematic, because we only here the word "manifesto" used in conjunction with "crazy people" and "revolutionaries," with a tremendous overlap between them. Free Software, captured the ideal if you understood the concept... clever for someone with a 180 IQ to create, interesting for people in the 130-150 range to understand and ponder, and meaninglessly abstract for someone in the normal range... bad branding #2, and RMS lost his movement.
3. Emacs vs. Xemacs: the exchange ab