June 29, 2007 10:43 AM PDT
Free Software Foundation releases GPL 3
Last modified: June 29, 2007 1:52 PM PDT
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The new license adjusts to software industry changes that have arisen in the 16 years since the foundation's founder and president, Richard Stallman, released GPL 2. One of the biggest changes: the free- and open-source programming movement has been transformed from an academic, legal and philosophical curiosity to a powerful force in the commercial computing industry.
Among those giving the new license a warm reception are IBM, dominant Linux sellers Red Hat and Novell, and open-source database seller MySQL.
"GPL 3 code will be flowing from IBM...We'll tell our customers we're fine with it," said Dan Frye, vice president of IBM open systems development. "As with any consensus process, you don't get everything you asked for. But we got listened to. What came out is absolutely a commercially viable license."
The text of the new license can be read on a
That popularity meant that countless affected parties wanted a say in the new license, and the foundation assembled many of them into committees to hammer out the new draft.
"These different groups have had an opportunity to find common ground on important issues facing the free-software community today,"
The big question now is whether the most prominent GPL project, the Linux kernel at the heart of the open-source operating system that often bears the same name, will move to the new license. Linux kernel leader
The GPL is the most widely used license in the open-source realm. More than 30,000 projects, which is about 66 percent of the open-source projects tracked by the
What changed?
The core idea of the license is unchanged: Anyone may see, modify or redistribute the underlying source code of a GPL-governed project. However, anyone who changes and redistributes the software must also publish those changes.
The new license carries several new provisions, though:
• The license carries an explicit patent grant, meaning that any entity that contributes software to a GPL project grants with it a perpetual, royalty-free license to any of the entity's patents that apply to the software.
• A provision to block future deals similar to that struck by
• The anti-"tivoization" provision intended to ensure that the owner of a device that uses GPL software can change that software. TiVo personal video recorders use Linux, but the foundation objects to measures that mean it doesn't work if an owner modifies the software. The foundation diluted this provision in recent drafts, but it has remained one of Torvalds' prime objections.
One major possible change that was dropped from earlier drafts was a clause that could have imposed a requirement in some circumstances on those using GPL 3 software for services available over a network such as the Internet. Those using GPL software aren't required to make changes public as long as the software is only used internally, but the proposed provision could have required them to release their internal changes if the programmer who originally created the software requested it.
Eventually, the foundation scrapped the idea, but it's still an issue the foundation is monitoring--particularly in the case of Google, which uses many open-source projects. There will be consequences if those who operate network services abuse the privileges granted by open-source software.
"If you want to protect your business model, you must be model citizens of the environment. If you shrink, political pressure will grow to constrain your rights to secure the rights of everyone else,"
This isn't a new provision of GPL v3. It was already present in GPL v2, look:
"7. (. . .) if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program."
What the new GPL does is only to explain in MUCH more details, and in a lot of legalese, this exact same patent granting mechanism. No matter how longer the new text is, its meaning hasn't changed at all.
Developement cost is lower since volunteers write the software. Those volunteers get satisfaction since they have the feel that they created something.
The TiVo porvision just creates a little more incompatibilty in the open source software, so people need more consultant to work it out.
Media companies also earns money since there is a good vs evil melodrama to cover.
Bottom line: This is actually a great and profitable business model, and it also give people good entertainment in writing software. This is a win-win situation.
- The GPL is a Socialist Policy for a Socialist Movement
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by WJeansonne
June 30, 2007 9:53 AM PDT
- period.
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