This article is confused and makes all sorts of horrible assumptions. In short, the author seems to believe that the only way people make money off free software by adding "differentiating" proprietary software to it. Since the whole point of the GPL is to prevent people from making the software under its purview non-free, it shouldn't really be surprising, then, that the author finds it a huge pain in the neck. Personally, I'd say the license is a success, and I suspect a lot of the companies making money from GPLed software would agree with me.
-- Brett Smith, License Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation
I won't deny that GPLv3 is more complex than GPLv2. That's because we
live in a more complex world now, where people interact with software in
lots of ways besides sitting down in front of a box that runs their code,
and some developers want to have all the advantages of freedom with none of
the obligations. You can use simple language if all the participants have
shared understanding. Unfortunately, not everybody groks freedom yet.
I'm not sure why you say that the additional provisions of GPLv3 don't protect us against recent threats to our freedom. We've already seen great success from some of them. For example, Microsoft recently announced that it will provide its patent assurances to all users of Novell's GNU/Linux distribution, and not just Novell's paying customers. This is exactly the outcome we wanted, and we got it.
A lot of changes are also great features for developers, such as new ways to provide source when you share object code (including BitTorrent support), and compatibility with more licenses like the Apache License 2.0. Adding these features makes the new complexity worth it.
The FSF investigates and pursues GPL violations on its software on all platforms. I've handled violations on Windows, MacOS X, GNU/Linux, and embedded devices. We provide complete instructions for reporting violations on our web site; if you're finding any kind of violation on FSF-copyrighted software, please don't hesitate to contact us.
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This article is confused and makes all sorts of horrible assumptions. In short, the author seems to believe that the only way people make money off free software by adding "differentiating" proprietary software to it. Since the whole point of the GPL is to prevent people from making the software under its purview non-free, it shouldn't really be surprising, then, that the author finds it a huge pain in the neck. Personally, I'd say the license is a success, and I suspect a lot of the companies making money from GPLed software would agree with me.
-- Brett Smith, License Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation
I won't deny that GPLv3 is more complex than GPLv2. That's because we live in a more complex world now, where people interact with software in lots of ways besides sitting down in front of a box that runs their code, and some developers want to have all the advantages of freedom with none of the obligations. You can use simple language if all the participants have shared understanding. Unfortunately, not everybody groks freedom yet.
I'm not sure why you say that the additional provisions of GPLv3 don't protect us against recent threats to our freedom. We've already seen great success from some of them. For example, Microsoft recently announced that it will provide its patent assurances to all users of Novell's GNU/Linux distribution, and not just Novell's paying customers. This is exactly the outcome we wanted, and we got it.
A lot of changes are also great features for developers, such as new ways to provide source when you share object code (including BitTorrent support), and compatibility with more licenses like the Apache License 2.0. Adding these features makes the new complexity worth it.
The FSF investigates and pursues GPL violations on its software on all platforms. I've handled violations on Windows, MacOS X, GNU/Linux, and embedded devices. We provide complete instructions for reporting violations on our web site; if you're finding any kind of violation on FSF-copyrighted software, please don't hesitate to contact us.
-- Brett Smith, FSF Licensing Compliance Engineer