Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 16th Jan 2006 19:52 UTC, submitted by anonymous
The Free Software Foundation has published the first draft of the GPL v3, the successor to the most popular open source license. The rationale behind some of the changes are here, while comments are here. Danese Cooper of OSI has posted her comments too. Update: Stallman: "We've partly removed the inconveniences of preventing a user from combining code from various free software packages." More here.
Thread beginning with comment 86770
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2005-07-07
It is not hard for me to imagine a piece of software being developed by developers who wish to retain total control over the software(ie. discouraging contributions from third-parties) but who licensce their software under the GPL so that it can be linked against other GPL'ed software.
It's one aspect to make money on a finished product (Linspire, Xandros, etc.) as many companies base their OS on Open Source Code (GPL'd) and then develop additional sw/apps that are not released under the GPL. As an example, I haven't seen any Source Code for Linspire's CNR. CNR is a proprietary app and the code is closed.
I have absolutely no problem with this practice. If someone distributes commercial-grade work under a non-GPL user license, it's probably considered proprietary code.
I see a problem with allowing Source Code licensed under the GPL to be, in effect, "sold" for up to ten times to cost of distribution. While there's no problem with making money on a finished product, Para 6.b. would also allow money to be made on the Source Code as well as the finished product.
Para 6.b. may additionally end up preventing very talented developers from contributing to Open Source simply because they could be priced-out of obtaining the source released under the GPLv3.