"A research firm serving the mobile phone industry has published an 18-page whitepaper about open source licensing. Entitled 'GPLv2 vs. GPLv3', the paper examines the meteoric rise of open source software, and the forces that shaped each license, before concluding with an extremely detailed point-by-point comparison."
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Member since:2006-10-25
"Supposed weakness like this one are produced in abundance by people who don't bother to read and understand the license before commenting."
Yes, and I read it as a comment. I had not come to that conclusion myself. I apologize for repeating that misconception and I thank you for the clarification.
Member since:2005-12-02
"The GPL3 only provides that the *owner* of the device in question should have the freedom to modify it. Gamblers don't own slot machines, nor do voters own voting machines."
The owner of slot would be the casino's. As a gambler I would not want them to be able to control the code either, nor to modify it. Same with voting machines where the government owns them. Casino owners should *never* be allowed to modify code in a machine, nor should the government be allowed to modify code in voting machines. GPLv3 specifically provides this right, which would therefore make it illegal to be used in these contexts, due to other laws which do and have existed. In these contexts the "consumers" are the casino's and governments. Consumer refers to whoever owns the equipment. A gambler or a voter are not "consumers" of those devices, just users. As I mentioned already, due to laws that already exist, GPLv3 licensed code is automatically and already shut out from these markets that you mentioned.
Member since:
2007-08-01
"Of a more interesting subject of discussion, I remember there was an interesting point made over machine-specific code through encryption (tivoisation) used in the context of casino gaming, voter machines, etc. There may be cases in which the GPL3's freedoms are not ideal, and one would want to restrict in what ways it can be used or redistributed by choosing a more restrictive OSS license."
The prohibition against tivoisation only applies to "consumer devices." Neither of those cases involve a consumer device as defined in Gpl3, and neither of them would invoke the anti-tivoisation language anyway. The GPL3 only provides that the *owner* of the device in question should have the freedom to modify it. Gamblers don't own slot machines, nor do voters own voting machines. Supposed weakness like this one are produced in abundance by people who don't bother to read and understand the license before commenting.