"propaganda" included in the GPL? what are you talking about?
Do you mean the Preamble? That is written for the judge, not for random readers. When a judge is ruling on the licence, interpretations will have to be made. The preamble directs the judge as to the spirit of the licence, and the licensors intent.
Also, I just want to add that between FSF, FSFE, FSFI, and FSFLA, organising events around the World is not so difficult. There is a local network of employees and/or volunteers in many cities (and these would be the places chosen to host events).
And, after getting many experts into one place so that a large discussion can be had, all events were recorded in some way. A good example is the European conference, for which the entire two days were recorded and put online.
Travel expenses for GPLv3 conferences are paid from a fund contributed to by companies with instructions that they be spent on GPLv3 awareness. To the best of my knowledge, none, or very little GPLv3-related travel was paid for out of ordinary donations. The FSFs are quite a frugal bunch.
And, for this unusual project, "disemination" is not only important, it is the duty of FSF. Because of the "any later version" clause, when FSF release GPLv3 it will change the terms under which a lot of software can be distributed. How can all the authors and distributors be informed of this? (and their input solicited?)
There's no formal way, so FSF have decided to spend a year on it and travel around the world and talk to the press and publish information online and participate in online discussions. If there are any other outlets, please help by spreading the word there. The above linked transcripts are a tool to help people who want to help in that way.
The fact is that I can't say what an EULA is and what a copyright licence is. To me, GPLv3 draft 2 looks like a copyright licence. The termination in section 2 paragraph 2 seems ok to me, but I'm not competent to ok it.
One thing I feel mildly competent to say is that that sentence can fail without taking the whole licence down with it. At worst, it's a useless, unenforceable sentence.
So an appeal to authority is about all I can offer (with a link so you can judge their authority)....until I get my own legal qualification:-)
The closing insult is genius, thanks for the display of your intellect.
As for your point, yes, forks happen. MIT/BSD allows for forks, and the forker can choose to make the fork unhealable (by many methods, one of which is not distributing the source). GPL also allows for forks, but it ensures that all forks can be healed - the fork and the original can be merged later because the licence can never become incompatible.
The superiority of the GPL approach (copyleft) can also be seen by the number of contributors to GNU/Linux compared to the number of contributors to the free BSDs. Copyleft creates a level playing field, and more agree to play.
What part are you talking about? The section paragraph of section 2?
This is borrowed from other free software licences. From the late 90s onward, many companies wrote their own free software licences, and many included patent retaliation clauses like this. GPLv3 is copying them.
That you haven't seen this before and that you have a hard time pigeonholing GPLv3 is a reflection of you, not the licence.
If you have a comment about the licence, please make it at gplv3.fsf.org (as well as discussing it in whatever online forums you want to).
All comments submitted there are reviewed by four committees with about 130 people in total. One of those committees is made up of legal experts. They should be competent enough to review your comment. Here's the member list of that committee: http://gplv3.fsf.org/discussion-committees/C/membe rlist-public
The "GPL is too long" argument is quite funny now.
For 15 years, people said "GPL is too long, write a 1-page version", but now that the licence is online for rewriting, and people are invited and asked to come to gplv3.fsf.org and suggest changes - where are the suggestions for what bits can be removed?
The length=bugs idea is a silly port of something that is kinda true in software but not really in legal documents. If it was true, Microsoft's EULA would be meaningless due to the number of bugs it must contain.
GPLv3 is being made easier to understand. It's not being made faster to read - reducing the byte count of the file would be a trivial goal and many more important goals would have to be sacrificed for it. It is being made clearer, and should be easier to understand - for lawyers, software developers, and judges.
The freedom you're talking about is total freedom - which leads to fuedalism, which is not very free at all in practice. Free software is specifically about the freedom to help yourself and to collaborate with others of your choosing.
No. If everyone agreed with RMS and found nothing that should be changed in draft 1 of GPLv3, there wouldn't be much point in having a year-long public consultation.
Criticism and suggestions are useful.
The problem is that too often there are debates under the topic of "GPLv3" which are wholely unrelated to GPLv3. People debate ideas such as "Should GPLv3 prohibit DRM", when GPLv3 doesn't prohibit DRM at all, only tivoisation. Or people debate "What if I don't own the device? What about my work computer?", but these are not being changed by GPLv3.
People don't have to agree with RMS or Moglen, but their presentations, and the text of the discussion drafts, provide a focal point to keep discussions (including criticisms) on-topic.
For explanations of the changes in GPLv3, I highly recommend
reading (or skimming) the
transcripts of the GPLv3 conferences. Each transcript includes
the subsequent Q&A session, and each begins with a list of links
to the topics covered and the questions asked.
Many also include links to audio and/or video recordings, and there's more general information about the timeline and how to participate on FSFE's GPLv3 page.
Also, if you want to help raise the quality of discussion, a useful and really easy thing to do is to pass these links on to others.
It's difficult to reply when comments are published as a news story instead of submitted to the gplv3.fsf.org forum. Using the forum attaches your comments to a part of the draft text.
Licence compatability - there is no beneficial reason for the GPL
to be incompatible with the Apache or Eclipse licences, so v3 will not
be incompatible
Internationalised wording - unlike 1991, we can now draw on the
input of hundreds of lawyers from tens of countries to make the most
solid document possible
Tivoisation and DRM - because the GPL was never meant to let Tivo insert
unremovable spyware or to let them ban adding certain features from
modified versions
It's great that we will get the benefit of this ruling during the year when GPLv3 is being written. This sort of thing provides great suggestions for what should be clearer or worded differently.
Thanks for that. The link didn't work, but I was able to guess the right link from it.
I also found the Debian video archive, which I didn't know existed. I'll try to get it added to FSFE's free software advocacy video list so that these things are in one place.
TiVo's are also known for tivoisatin. They love receiving the freedom to add easter eggs, but are not big fans of passing that freedom on to others (or the freedom to remove their spyware, or the freedom to add features you want).
As well as the above transcript of a talk with Richard, there is also a transcript online of the talk by Richard at the 4th international GPLv3 conference:
The article argues that copyleft (not free software) is anti-business. This is clearly not true because the copylefted free Unix-like operating system (GNU/Linux) has far more business contributions and business models base on it than the non-copylefted free Unix-like operating systems (the free BSDs).
So companies have voted with their feet and have sent a clear message that they will work with copylefted free software.
The GNU GPL requires that everyone play fair. Many companies will look for ways to be the only person who is exempt from the rules, but free software will not gain acceptance by ditching copyleft and pandering to a few new best friends.
One last think I want to point at is a side-by-side diff with the changes highlighted from draft 1 to draft 2 so everyone can see the responses to the public process that the committees talk about in the Newsforge article.
Linus's statement, which this article shows to be incorrect, was: "The
real problem was always the re-definition of source code. Actually, I take that back. The real problem was and is that there are
lots of people who disagreed with the FSF on issues (mine was the
definition of source code, while I know that some commercial entities
felt that the patent language was totally unsupportable). And the FSF
took that input, and then totally ignored it."
Slashdot Mirror
Eben Moglen: "Bill Gates has surrendered ... Even better: Mr. Gates has surrendered and is leaving the company to Mr. Ballmer. Better news for us could not have been imagined.
"propaganda" included in the GPL? what are you talking about?
Do you mean the Preamble? That is written for the judge, not for random readers. When a judge is ruling on the licence, interpretations will have to be made. The preamble directs the judge as to the spirit of the licence, and the licensors intent.
It is a legal statement.
Also, I just want to add that between FSF, FSFE, FSFI, and FSFLA, organising events around the World is not so difficult. There is a local network of employees and/or volunteers in many cities (and these would be the places chosen to host events).
And, after getting many experts into one place so that a large discussion can be had, all events were recorded in some way. A good example is the European conference, for which the entire two days were recorded and put online.
Travel expenses for GPLv3 conferences are paid from a fund contributed to by companies with instructions that they be spent on GPLv3 awareness. To the best of my knowledge, none, or very little GPLv3-related travel was paid for out of ordinary donations. The FSFs are quite a frugal bunch.
And, for this unusual project, "disemination" is not only important, it is the duty of FSF. Because of the "any later version" clause, when FSF release GPLv3 it will change the terms under which a lot of software can be distributed. How can all the authors and distributors be informed of this? (and their input solicited?)
There's no formal way, so FSF have decided to spend a year on it and travel around the world and talk to the press and publish information online and participate in online discussions. If there are any other outlets, please help by spreading the word there. The above linked transcripts are a tool to help people who want to help in that way.
You got me, I took the lazy way out.
...until I get my own legal qualification :-)
The fact is that I can't say what an EULA is and what a copyright licence is. To me, GPLv3 draft 2 looks like a copyright licence. The termination in section 2 paragraph 2 seems ok to me, but I'm not competent to ok it.
One thing I feel mildly competent to say is that that sentence can fail without taking the whole licence down with it. At worst, it's a useless, unenforceable sentence.
So an appeal to authority is about all I can offer (with a link so you can judge their authority).
The closing insult is genius, thanks for the display of your intellect.
n g.html
As for your point, yes, forks happen. MIT/BSD allows for forks, and the forker can choose to make the fork unhealable (by many methods, one of which is not distributing the source). GPL also allows for forks, but it ensures that all forks can be healed - the fork and the original can be merged later because the licence can never become incompatible.
Here's an excellent essay on the topic: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forki
The superiority of the GPL approach (copyleft) can also be seen by the number of contributors to GNU/Linux compared to the number of contributors to the free BSDs. Copyleft creates a level playing field, and more agree to play.
What part are you talking about? The section paragraph of section 2?
e rlist-public
This is borrowed from other free software licences. From the late 90s onward, many companies wrote their own free software licences, and many included patent retaliation clauses like this. GPLv3 is copying them.
That you haven't seen this before and that you have a hard time pigeonholing GPLv3 is a reflection of you, not the licence.
If you have a comment about the licence, please make it at gplv3.fsf.org (as well as discussing it in whatever online forums you want to).
All comments submitted there are reviewed by four committees with about 130 people in total. One of those committees is made up of legal experts. They should be competent enough to review your comment. Here's the member list of that committee:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/discussion-committees/C/memb
The "GPL is too long" argument is quite funny now.
For 15 years, people said "GPL is too long, write a 1-page version", but now that the licence is online for rewriting, and people are invited and asked to come to gplv3.fsf.org and suggest changes - where are the suggestions for what bits can be removed?
The length=bugs idea is a silly port of something that is kinda true in software but not really in legal documents. If it was true, Microsoft's EULA would be meaningless due to the number of bugs it must contain.
GPLv3 is being made easier to understand. It's not being made faster to read - reducing the byte count of the file would be a trivial goal and many more important goals would have to be sacrificed for it. It is being made clearer, and should be easier to understand - for lawyers, software developers, and judges.
What part of the GPLv3 discussion draft 2 puts the restrictions on the end-user that you claim?
GPLv3 only puts restrictions on redistribution, not on use. (Just like v2.)
Stallman explains this in Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism.
The freedom you're talking about is total freedom - which leads to fuedalism, which is not very free at all in practice. Free software is specifically about the freedom to help yourself and to collaborate with others of your choosing.
No. If everyone agreed with RMS and found nothing that should be changed in draft 1 of GPLv3, there wouldn't be much point in having a year-long public consultation.
Criticism and suggestions are useful.
The problem is that too often there are debates under the topic of "GPLv3" which are wholely unrelated to GPLv3. People debate ideas such as "Should GPLv3 prohibit DRM", when GPLv3 doesn't prohibit DRM at all, only tivoisation. Or people debate "What if I don't own the device? What about my work computer?", but these are not being changed by GPLv3.
People don't have to agree with RMS or Moglen, but their presentations, and the text of the discussion drafts, provide a focal point to keep discussions (including criticisms) on-topic.
For explanations of the changes in GPLv3, I highly recommend reading (or skimming) the transcripts of the GPLv3 conferences. Each transcript includes the subsequent Q&A session, and each begins with a list of links to the topics covered and the questions asked.
The freshest transcript is RMS in Bangalore in August. Here are the others:
Many also include links to audio and/or video recordings, and there's more general information about the timeline and how to participate on FSFE's GPLv3 page.
Also, if you want to help raise the quality of discussion, a useful and really easy thing to do is to pass these links on to others.
FSFE launched http://DRM.info, and participated in various activities for Day Against DRM.
It's difficult to reply when comments are published as a news story instead of submitted to the gplv3.fsf.org forum. Using the forum attaches your comments to a part of the draft text.
Here are transcripts of eight GPL3 talks plus Q+A sessions. Many arguments for using GPLv3 can be found in those. Some specific points:
(This is a repost of a comment I made on another site.)
It's great that we will get the benefit of this ruling during the year when GPLv3 is being written. This sort of thing provides great suggestions for what should be clearer or worded differently.
Thanks for that. The link didn't work, but I was able to guess the right link from it.
I also found the Debian video archive, which I didn't know existed. I'll try to get it added to FSFE's free software advocacy video list so that these things are in one place.
The article says there is a video where "Danese Cooper clearly stated there that the CDDL was intentionally modelled on the MPL in order to make it GPL- incompatible", but the URL given (http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-mee tings/2006/debconf6/theora-small/2006-5-14/tower/O penSolaris_Java_and_Debian-Simon_Phipps__Alvaro_Lo pez_Ortega.ogg gives me a 404.
Anyone got a working URL? Thanks.
TiVo's are also known for tivoisatin. They love receiving the freedom to add easter eggs, but are not big fans of passing that freedom on to others (or the freedom to remove their spyware, or the freedom to add features you want).
RMS gave a good explanation of this in his recent talk on GPLv3.
As well as the above transcript of a talk with Richard, there is also a transcript online of the talk by Richard at the 4th international GPLv3 conference:
GPL = "General Public License"
The article argues that copyleft (not free software) is anti-business. This is clearly not true because the copylefted free Unix-like operating system (GNU/Linux) has far more business contributions and business models base on it than the non-copylefted free Unix-like operating systems (the free BSDs).
So companies have voted with their feet and have sent a clear message that they will work with copylefted free software.
The GNU GPL requires that everyone play fair. Many companies will look for ways to be the only person who is exempt from the rules, but free software will not gain acceptance by ditching copyleft and pandering to a few new best friends.
Here's the newsforge story ("Torvalds' comments on GPLv3 committees refuted").
I blogged about this and added more info about the committees.
One last think I want to point at is a side-by-side diff with the changes highlighted from draft 1 to draft 2 so everyone can see the responses to the public process that the committees talk about in the Newsforge article.
His webserver is MS, and it was down earlier. From Georg Greve's blog: Technical difficulties all around
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has no problem being dependent on US software, which in turn has no problem failing on him.
Well, thanks for that copy'n'paste. You don't seem to disagree that the part I quoted was the relevent part, so I guess you agree with me.
Nope. I've done my homework on this one.
Linus's statement, which this article shows to be incorrect, was: "The real problem was always the re-definition of source code. Actually, I take that back. The real problem was and is that there are lots of people who disagreed with the FSF on issues (mine was the definition of source code, while I know that some commercial entities felt that the patent language was totally unsupportable). And the FSF took that input, and then totally ignored it."