Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 8th Jan 2008 23:18 UTC
Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system, still has no plans to license the Linux kernel under version three of the GNU GPL anytime soon. Torvalds, a vocal critic of GPL v3 while it was being drafted, prefers GPL v2, he told Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation, Jan. 8 in the first in a series of podcasts titled 'Open Voices', which will feature the industry's top open source and Linux leaders. Torvalds also said Linux was the project that made the split clear between the religious belief in freedom advocated by the Free Software Foundation and the technical superiority that open source and Linux have always been about.
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Member since:
2006-03-20
While he does not control the kernel, his decisions hold weight in what happens to the kernel. If Linus wanted to go with the GPLv3, then it was more likely to happen. It would take someone like Linus to get permission from the other kernel developers to change the license of their code. Linus's decision makes it very unlikely that we will see the kernel being put under the GPLv3.
This does not prevent kernel developers from dual licensing their code as I understand it.