The first public draft of GNU General Public License 3.0 will be released at an event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday, and open-source software advocates are hoping that effective provisions for software patents as well as GPL compatibility with other licenses will be prominent in the draft. There is much optimism among those in the free and open-source community that GPL 3.0, the next version of the license that governs much software, including the Linux kernel, will provide a stable licensing environment for the foreseeable future.
What are they planning on adding in GPL3?
What are they planning on adding in GPL3?
Ok, I might remember this wrong, but…
Mostly things covered by patents and companies that are making money on internal inhouse GPL modifications.
Most drastic one:
With GPL2 you could download, modify and run your version without posting source (I think they were talking about Google doing that) for your self, v2 only excluded that when you distributed. v3 should suppress that option, where you HAVE TO post modified version as source as soon as you start making money on your version.
p.s. If I’m wrong just mod me down, so my comment won’t proclaim bull and hereticism.
p.s. If I’m wrong just mod me down, so my comment won’t proclaim bull and hereticism.
Better, I will try to correct you.
The last I hear about this issue was that it would not be legal to REMOVE a feture, IF IMPLEMENTED, that provides a mean for downloading the source of the running program.
> The last I hear about this issue was that it would not
> be legal to REMOVE a feture, IF IMPLEMENTED, that
> provides a mean for downloading the source of the
> running program.
I hope they leave this out. It would unnessecarily hinder the development of programs where such downloading does not make sense, from programs where it made sense. But then, I think a feature to download source code belongs into the realm of package/module managers anyway and that there is no reason to clutter other code with such things.
(And exactly for that reason, I don’t think the GPL should force me to clutter my code. I’d happily provide source code for modified GPL programs, free of charge, but please leave the details to me).
– Morin
> The last I hear about this issue was that it would not
> be legal to REMOVE a feture, IF IMPLEMENTED, that
> provides a mean for downloading the source of the
> running program.
It’s kind of funny that the people responsible for a license that is supposed to allow one the ability to freely modify code would add yet another restriction preventing one from doing just that.
True freedom is a lack of restrictions, and they just keep piling on more… some “nessesary” and others braindead, like the one quoted above…
>True freedom is a lack of restrictions, and they just keep piling on more… some “nessesary” and others braindead, like the one quoted above…
Maybe you describe “true freedom” but as long as we are what we are, simple humans, i prefere a freedom with restrictions.
For example i don’t want to live in a state were everyone can do what he wants. I feel better if i know that it’s not allowed to kill people, not allowed to enslave people and many other things. Due to the same reasons i prefere a license which protects freedom.
Edited 2006-01-16 01:03
Well, that depends. If actually being able to see and modify the source code is more important to you than just having a working product, then sure, I can see your point; however, most people don’t care about the source code being available, so long as it works as expected and is a good product. By applying the ideas that I stated earlier, one finds out that using a BSD license is generally a better idea, because it increases overall quality at the expense of not gaurenteeing that users can modify derivative work.
Oh, I see. So they’re just addressing the issue of in-house use of GPL, then, or did I just completely miss what you’re trying to say?
In any event, I find it ironic that GPL supposedly gives more freedom to the user, which it does, but only in a direct manner. I’ve found that, if anything, the indirect way of benefiting users, where people use the software you release to create a better product of their own, tends to be better for the community. By forcing users and modifiers to release their modifications under the GPL, you end up limiting who will redistribute that product commercially, which means less choice for the user and more time wasted overall in terms of creating software in the given domain.
Oh, I see. So they’re just addressing the issue of in-house use of GPL, then, or did I just completely miss what you’re trying to say?
Yes, yes you did.
These are talking about WEB SERVICES, not in-house use. And ONLY web services that have implemented a feature that allows you to download the source code from the running program.
So this would not affect the Linux Kernel for example (ignoring for a minute that Linux is licnesed under GPL 2 only) because such a feature would not make sense in a kernel.
I see why this is potentially important, however, I have one question. How would we KNOW that the downloaded source code would actually go with the web service?
Isn’t it possible to modify the web service, so that the “download source code function” downloads the old source code rather than the “new updated code” that may do things we don’t want? And yet we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference and in addition we couldn’t recompile the source code to ensure that the source matches the binary, because it’s on someone else’s computer?
Will do. Just modded you down.
This only applies to publicly accessible computers (web services, etc.) running GPL licensed software that have already implemented a feature that allows you to download the source code from a running program. The GPL will not allow you to remove that feature.
Thanks
The chord struck by the combination of GPL and BSD-style licenses has had more effect than either would have had in isolation.
The GPL has been a Magna Carta of the Information Age already. It will be interesting to see whether it remains true to its spirit, or becomes a political vehicle.
The GPL has always been a political vehicle as much as anything else.
(Not that this is a bad thing, but I think you’d be naive to miss it.)
I’ll go social, but the politics of it escaped me.
By the way, Linux is covered by GPL 2.0 exclusively I don’t even know whether Torvalds and friends have right to change the license because there must be hundreds of programmers who have copyrights on the Linux kernel.
>v3 should suppress that option, where you HAVE TO post modified version as source as soon as you start making money on your version.
That’s worng. You can do what you want with GPL programs inhouse and you can use GPL porgram commercially in any way without releasing source code.
The only point is, that you have to give the person the source code to which you distribute your program.
The mind of the GPL is, that computer users should have freedom. Today and in the future people will use more and more programs where they don’t have a copy on their local harddisk. But at the end the location of a program doesn’t make a difference, people should have freedom independent from the location of the binary. So the GPLv3 will probably have a option, which the author could use, that software which people use without copying it to their local harddisk will offer them the sourcecode and the freedom they deserve.