Star Torvalds Still Will Not License Linux Under GPL v3
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 8th Jan 2008 23:18 UTC
Linux 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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RE[4]: Right on!
by lemur2 on Wed 9th Jan 2008 11:14 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Right on!"
lemur2
Member since:
2007-02-17

Come to think about it, I wonder what makes Open Solaris so special that Linus is willing to follow it and only it on the GPLv3 issue. Why Open Solaris? How is it and Sun's stance relevant for Linux?


Open Solaris (or more completely, GNU/Solaris)
http://www.gnusolaris.org/gswiki

... is the only viable direct competitor to GNU/Linux if it were to be licensed under the GPL. It is not a competitor right now because the OpenSolaris kernel is licensed under the CCDL.

BSD is not a competitor because it is too susceptible to just being taken by some commercial entity with no "give back" obligation (*cough* darwin *cough*) ... so developers are not keen to see their supposed-to-be-open-code being used to rip people off.

There are, apparently by some estimates, the approximate equivalent of 1.5 million FOSS developers. Something over 60% of these release their code as GPL code ... there is a reason for this.

Anyway, if it were to be licensed under GPLv3, then OpenSolaris could include drivers from the Linux kernel project ... but the Linux kernel project under GPLv2 could not use anything back from OpenSolaris. That is probably the driver for Sun considering the GPLv3 in the first place. In order to remain competitive, Linus would have to move the Linux kernel to GPLv3.

Also, AFAIK, OpenSolaris is the only project that Linux actually wants something from. I think it is "zones" that he wants.

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