That's silly. The kernel is already licensed under the GPLv2 only, which is already incompatible to the GPLv3. Tberefore forking to a compatible license is also impossible.
It might be a good thing, if Torvalds really isn't interested in the goals the FSF is pursuing. Perhaps start with the exact same text, but with another name (that would still be GPLv2 compatible so it would be a trivial change, but one that would make the situation clear).
The problem now is that this is supposed to be a FSF discussion, about how best to achieve their goals by changing their license, using the process designed for changing it. Any affected parties can comment, and they do - I love the color codes on the drafts that show all the comments people had. All FSF code and much third party code is licensed under "version 2 or later" of the GPL just to make this process possible. It's how it's supposed to go.
Torvalds wrote a great kernel, but he's not really a party in the discussion. He famously doesn't really care about FSF politics, and he chose to opt out of that whole business a long time ago by using GPLv2 only for Linux. He shouldn't really be involved in this discussion, but he's very vocal, and people listen to him because of who he is.
So yes, perhaps it would be better for both sides if Linus renamed the license he uses to Linux GPL. Less confusion.
I think GPL3 is political, a knee jerk reaction to events in the market that RMS and some others are opposed to philosophically.
Does the pope shit in the woods?
RMS' personal philosophy of total software freedom is what drove him to creating the FSF, the GPL and GNU in the first place. It's not exactly a surprise that this reflects a little on the license text.
If Torvalds doesn't like that, he should have picked a difference license.
How is GPLv3 compatible with other GNU licenses?
The various GNU licenses enjoy broad compatibility between each other. The only time you can't combine code under two of these licenses is when you want to use code that's only under an older version of a license with code that's under a newer version.
Only the copyright holder(s) can sue. As far as I know, the mplayer people haven't assigned copyright to the FSF, so the FSF isn't involved and couldn't sue if it wanted to.
Mind you, the FSF usually has success by sending their lawyers to talk to infringing companies. As far as I know, that has always worked so far (there was an Eben Moglen interview a while ago that talked about things like this)
The internet doesn't need to be messed with. Its actually the only free (as in speech) place to exchange information (depending on where you live).
But only because of net neutrality, and the whole open, free way it was designed.
Without government interference, the original AOL would have ruled the world. You get to see exactly what your provider wants to sell to you. Net neutrality is the only thing keeping that at bay, imo.
This is the section 102 you refer to: USC 35 s 102. It is followed by section 103, "Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter", which states:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.
Which is why everybody is complaining. Amazon is using the #1 most totally bloody obvious way to solve the problem they wanted to solve.
When you purchase shrink-wrapped software, in addition to the media and printed manual, you are purchasing a license to use the software. That license is granted by the maker of the software and is transferred to you by the retailer.
Now IANAL, I'm not even in the US, so I don't know the actual law. But I do believe that the FSF has some knowledge of this sort of thing, it's their business and reason to exist.
And they say that you don't need a license merely to use software, since use is not covered by copyright law. Copyright law covers copying, distribution and modification.
So either the FSF's lawyers don't know copyright law, or a license to use software is bogus.
Exactly. The GPL grants you a lot of rights, provided you grant the same rights to anybody you distribute to. It's symmetrical.
The GPL isn't very restrictive (hey, it includes a patent license, BSD doesn't have that). But that automatically also means that anybody using that code has to be unrestrictive downstream as well. Symmetry.
Most of the opponents of the GPL want a license to be less restrictive towards them, but still they want to be more restrictive themselves. Well, those people never were in the GPL camp in the first place, were they? So their comments about GPLv3 vs v2 don't seem very relevant.
This just makes no sense. The difference between GPLv2 and v3 is negligible compared to the difference between the GPL and other licenses.
It's basically the same license, it's just that it's written in a more legally robust way, more explicitly enforcing the things that GPLv2 is already supposed to enforce.
It's also had the most thorough community review process ever, for these sorts of things. Every word of GPLv3 has been debated by everybody who bothered to get involved, including all the major commercial users.
Hey, that's pretty cool. It seems like that's pretty convincing evidence of life on Mars.
I'd say it's evidence of death on Mars.
Re:Gah GPLv3 is total bullshit
on
GPLv2 Vs. GPLv3
·
· Score: 1
It's as if the FSF are building in license clauses which are guaranteed to be legally challenged; one of the problems with the original GPLv2 license was it was NEVER effectively taken on in court and defined in legal concepts or precedent as most other licenses tend to have been.
It was never tested because it's pretty much unassailable, a law suit has no chance. It's not an EULA, but a simple copyright license.
Consider: the GPL only gives you extra rights over what copyright law gives you, it takes away none. You are under no obligation to accept it whatsoever. If you don't accept it, you get all the normal rights you get under copyright law (that is, you may use the program, but not modify or copy it). The GPL states that you can get the right the modify and copy, provided you adhere to a list of requirements.
An argument like "I copied this program, which I was only allowed to do because I chose to accept the GPL, but still I feel requirement X doesn't apply to me" just doesn't make much chance in court. That goes for both GPLv2 and GPLv3.
MS distributes software (by the Novell voucher deal) that has licenses that read "GPL v2, or any later version". They knew when they did that that they were distributing software under a license that the FSF had freedom to change. So it goes.
Of course; a mere copyright license can't put any restrictions on what some completely unrelated third party does with its patents.
That said, Microsoft purchased SuSE vouchers from Novell in the recent deal, and it has been selling them on (to Dell, for one), and they don't have an expiration date. According to Eben Moglen, if anybody with such a voucher turns it in for a copy of SuSE after part of the software in SuSE is covered by the GPL3 - then Microsoft will have distributed GPL3 software.
The kernel is at "GPLv2", not "GPLv2 or later". Basically, with the or later clause, distributors are bound by all later versions, so the work would effectively be under GPLv3 already; but since it isn't, we're going to have a problem with incompatibility for a while until Linus comes around.
Otherwise, back in the 80s/90s when computers only had 256 colours or less, why didn't we see manufacturers claiming they could actually display thousands of colours?
Well, they couldn't even display 256 - by this logic, a CRT monitor can only display red, blue and green, the rest is dithering.
So what does the future hold? With only five data-points, it is hard to be sure exactly which mathematical curve is being followed. If it is what is known as a power law, then the 14-bladed razor should arrive in 2100. The spate of recent innovation, however, suggests it may be a hyperbola. In that case, blade hyperdrive will be reached in the next few years and those who choose not to sport beards might be advised to start exercising their shaving arms now.
With a graph showing the number of blades going to infinity around 2010.
Well, I always just enter my ICQ number into Gaim, together with my MSN address, and it all just works (still does). All my old friends on the list are in it by their ICQ. I had no idea AOL owned it, though...
And, what's more, hardly any honest user will share that content online, if that's how they're getting their music and TV episodes.
Why not? Because it's too much damn work, that's why. I'm not going to start up some P2P program or BitTorrent just to share content I have to complete strangers, unless I'm already using such programs to download stuff for myself.
Every time they give us a reason to download anything from P2P, they're also making it much more likely that we start sharing what we already have in the mean time. And DRM of any sort is a damn good reason to download an unencumbered version of the net - annoyance factor is important.
So exactly, just give us the ease of use, reasonable price and huge catalog, and we'll come.
Now their only problem is that Allofmp3 has such a great offering already... They might be late to the show. Well, perhaps if they offer to download the entire contents of my cart as a single.zip, instead of as distinct downloads. And they probably do still have the better catalog, just. Well, I welcome whatever real competition they plan to bring:-)
And it's amazing how ingrained into the brain that sort of thing is. When I was 12 or so, I realized I was avoiding using the word "Turk"; I found myself searching for something like "someone from Turkey", because "Turk" sounded negative. I live in the Netherlands, and Turks are a large ethnic group here, since they were invited to come here to alleviate labor shortages in the 50s. I have tried not to avoid using the normal word since then.
But groups of foreign workers... we've gone through (can't translate all of them) "rijkswerker", "guest worker", "migrant", "ethnic minority", "allochtoon", "newcomer", "medelander" (sort-of "co-dutchman")... probably several more. At some point government tried to ban some of those words from official use because of "negative connotations".
Those words typically apply to even third-generation immigrants but mysteriously aren't used for people who look just like the traditional white Dutch person.
Disgusting. But it seems to be hard wired behavior?
Slashdot Mirror
That's silly. The kernel is already licensed under the GPLv2 only, which is already incompatible to the GPLv3. Tberefore forking to a compatible license is also impossible.
It might be a good thing, if Torvalds really isn't interested in the goals the FSF is pursuing. Perhaps start with the exact same text, but with another name (that would still be GPLv2 compatible so it would be a trivial change, but one that would make the situation clear).
The problem now is that this is supposed to be a FSF discussion, about how best to achieve their goals by changing their license, using the process designed for changing it. Any affected parties can comment, and they do - I love the color codes on the drafts that show all the comments people had. All FSF code and much third party code is licensed under "version 2 or later" of the GPL just to make this process possible. It's how it's supposed to go.
Torvalds wrote a great kernel, but he's not really a party in the discussion. He famously doesn't really care about FSF politics, and he chose to opt out of that whole business a long time ago by using GPLv2 only for Linux. He shouldn't really be involved in this discussion, but he's very vocal, and people listen to him because of who he is.
So yes, perhaps it would be better for both sides if Linus renamed the license he uses to Linux GPL. Less confusion.
I think GPL3 is political, a knee jerk reaction to events in the market that RMS and some others are opposed to philosophically.
Does the pope shit in the woods?
RMS' personal philosophy of total software freedom is what drove him to creating the FSF, the GPL and GNU in the first place. It's not exactly a surprise that this reflects a little on the license text.
If Torvalds doesn't like that, he should have picked a difference license.
The GPLv3 FAQ:
How is GPLv3 compatible with other GNU licenses?
The various GNU licenses enjoy broad compatibility between each other. The only time you can't combine code under two of these licenses is when you want to use code that's only under an older version of a license with code that's under a newer version.
So strictly GPL2 stuff is incompatible.
v2 and v3 are incompatible. Code that was licensed "version 2 or later", as intended, is fine (that will simply be upgraded to "version 3 or later").
Unfortunately Linus chose not to do that, way back when, so it won't be possible to use Linux kernel code in GPLv3 code, or the other way around.
The FSF has always used "version 2 or later" licenses. In that case, there is no incompatibility.
It's only third party projects that changed that into version 2 only that will now be incompatible.
Only the copyright holder(s) can sue. As far as I know, the mplayer people haven't assigned copyright to the FSF, so the FSF isn't involved and couldn't sue if it wanted to.
Mind you, the FSF usually has success by sending their lawyers to talk to infringing companies. As far as I know, that has always worked so far (there was an Eben Moglen interview a while ago that talked about things like this)
Not much, probably. Glibc is under the LGPL, and the others aren't linked to the kernel, just build tools. That should be fine.
I don't know if there is code that is linked into kernel binaries that will be under the GPLv3, but I don't think there is.
The internet doesn't need to be messed with. Its actually the only free (as in speech) place to exchange information (depending on where you live).
But only because of net neutrality, and the whole open, free way it was designed.
Without government interference, the original AOL would have ruled the world. You get to see exactly what your provider wants to sell to you. Net neutrality is the only thing keeping that at bay, imo.
This is the section 102 you refer to: USC 35 s 102. It is followed by section 103, "Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter", which states:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.
Which is why everybody is complaining. Amazon is using the #1 most totally bloody obvious way to solve the problem they wanted to solve.
When you purchase shrink-wrapped software, in addition to the media and printed manual, you are purchasing a license to use the software. That license is granted by the maker of the software and is transferred to you by the retailer.
Now IANAL, I'm not even in the US, so I don't know the actual law. But I do believe that the FSF has some knowledge of this sort of thing, it's their business and reason to exist.
And they say that you don't need a license merely to use software, since use is not covered by copyright law. Copyright law covers copying, distribution and modification.
So either the FSF's lawyers don't know copyright law, or a license to use software is bogus.
Exactly. The GPL grants you a lot of rights, provided you grant the same rights to anybody you distribute to. It's symmetrical.
The GPL isn't very restrictive (hey, it includes a patent license, BSD doesn't have that). But that automatically also means that anybody using that code has to be unrestrictive downstream as well. Symmetry.
Most of the opponents of the GPL want a license to be less restrictive towards them, but still they want to be more restrictive themselves. Well, those people never were in the GPL camp in the first place, were they? So their comments about GPLv3 vs v2 don't seem very relevant.
This just makes no sense. The difference between GPLv2 and v3 is negligible compared to the difference between the GPL and other licenses.
It's basically the same license, it's just that it's written in a more legally robust way, more explicitly enforcing the things that GPLv2 is already supposed to enforce.
It's also had the most thorough community review process ever, for these sorts of things. Every word of GPLv3 has been debated by everybody who bothered to get involved, including all the major commercial users.
All news like this is just FUD.
Hey, that's pretty cool. It seems like that's pretty convincing evidence of life on Mars.
I'd say it's evidence of death on Mars.
It's as if the FSF are building in license clauses which are guaranteed to be legally challenged; one of the problems with the original GPLv2 license was it was NEVER effectively taken on in court and defined in legal concepts or precedent as most other licenses tend to have been.
It was never tested because it's pretty much unassailable, a law suit has no chance. It's not an EULA, but a simple copyright license.
Consider: the GPL only gives you extra rights over what copyright law gives you, it takes away none. You are under no obligation to accept it whatsoever. If you don't accept it, you get all the normal rights you get under copyright law (that is, you may use the program, but not modify or copy it). The GPL states that you can get the right the modify and copy, provided you adhere to a list of requirements.
An argument like "I copied this program, which I was only allowed to do because I chose to accept the GPL, but still I feel requirement X doesn't apply to me" just doesn't make much chance in court. That goes for both GPLv2 and GPLv3.
MS distributes software (by the Novell voucher deal) that has licenses that read "GPL v2, or any later version". They knew when they did that that they were distributing software under a license that the FSF had freedom to change. So it goes.
Of course; a mere copyright license can't put any restrictions on what some completely unrelated third party does with its patents.
That said, Microsoft purchased SuSE vouchers from Novell in the recent deal, and it has been selling them on (to Dell, for one), and they don't have an expiration date. According to Eben Moglen, if anybody with such a voucher turns it in for a copy of SuSE after part of the software in SuSE is covered by the GPL3 - then Microsoft will have distributed GPL3 software.
The kernel is at "GPLv2", not "GPLv2 or later". Basically, with the or later clause, distributors are bound by all later versions, so the work would effectively be under GPLv3 already; but since it isn't, we're going to have a problem with incompatibility for a while until Linus comes around.
Otherwise, back in the 80s/90s when computers only had 256 colours or less, why didn't we see manufacturers claiming they could actually display thousands of colours?
Well, they couldn't even display 256 - by this logic, a CRT monitor can only display red, blue and green, the rest is dithering.
The Economist, March 2006:
With a graph showing the number of blades going to infinity around 2010.
He's now 3, built like an ox and hopefully fixed for good.
That's a rather cruel thing to do to a boy, isn't it?
As Michael Crichton points out, all we have are computer models and theories.
Michael Crichton writes FICTION.
Well, I always just enter my ICQ number into Gaim, together with my MSN address, and it all just works (still does). All my old friends on the list are in it by their ICQ. I had no idea AOL owned it, though...
And, what's more, hardly any honest user will share that content online, if that's how they're getting their music and TV episodes.
Why not? Because it's too much damn work, that's why. I'm not going to start up some P2P program or BitTorrent just to share content I have to complete strangers, unless I'm already using such programs to download stuff for myself.
Every time they give us a reason to download anything from P2P, they're also making it much more likely that we start sharing what we already have in the mean time. And DRM of any sort is a damn good reason to download an unencumbered version of the net - annoyance factor is important.
So exactly, just give us the ease of use, reasonable price and huge catalog, and we'll come.
Now their only problem is that Allofmp3 has such a great offering already... They might be late to the show. Well, perhaps if they offer to download the entire contents of my cart as a single .zip, instead of as distinct downloads. And they probably do still have the better catalog, just. Well, I welcome whatever real competition they plan to bring :-)
And it's amazing how ingrained into the brain that sort of thing is. When I was 12 or so, I realized I was avoiding using the word "Turk"; I found myself searching for something like "someone from Turkey", because "Turk" sounded negative. I live in the Netherlands, and Turks are a large ethnic group here, since they were invited to come here to alleviate labor shortages in the 50s. I have tried not to avoid using the normal word since then.
But groups of foreign workers... we've gone through (can't translate all of them) "rijkswerker", "guest worker", "migrant", "ethnic minority", "allochtoon", "newcomer", "medelander" (sort-of "co-dutchman")... probably several more. At some point government tried to ban some of those words from official use because of "negative connotations".
Those words typically apply to even third-generation immigrants but mysteriously aren't used for people who look just like the traditional white Dutch person.
Disgusting. But it seems to be hard wired behavior?