GPLv3 - A Primer on Open Warfare in Open Source 449
savio13 writes "A BusinessWeek article about the GPLv3 starts to shed some light on where things are, and what the hold up is in getting the newest version out. They discuss the Stallman vs. Torvalds conflict, issues with DRM, the goal of 'one-stop licensing', and the ever-more-likely possibility that the newest version of the GPL just isn't relevant." From the article: "The impetus to make a profit (and its associated compromises) isn't sitting well with true believers in free software. And the resulting rifts were apparent at last week's LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco. On one side is Richard Stallman and his Free Software Foundation. When Stallman says "free" he doesn't mean price, he means freedom. He believes all software should be freely available to be modified by the public. And for him, this is nothing short of a moral fight. On the other is Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux. He and others in his open-source camp believe that freely sharing code simply produces the best software, but if other people want to hide their code, that's fine, too. Companies will just vote with their feet."
Stallman vs. Torvalds? (Score:4, Interesting)
It sounds like a mountain of a story being made out of a molehill of comments.
I tend to go with the Linus Camp. (Score:1, Interesting)
Extremism leads to nothing (Score:2, Interesting)
While the ideal to have a "free" world filled with people who share their work no matter the cost may sound very appealing, so does the world of Utopia or paradise. In the real world this isn't going to happen, not in the amounts these people are talking about. And why should we try to force this freedom onto people and as such deny them their right to do what they want to do? What is this all about anyway, the good of the IT world or the fame and glory of the people trying to push this shiney freedom onto us, no matter how we may feel about it?
Fact remains that there are still people making money from selling software. Just like there are now also many people and companies who see the advantages of giving their software away and by doing so seeing their userbase expand ten/hundred/thousand -fold. Who are we to tell them what to do when they wish to use our software? Isn't that exactly what started all this; the imense EULA's and the likes where you basicly hand over everything and right but the kitchen sink to the publisher? Now I sorta see the same thing happening, but in the other sense of the word.
If it wasn't for fanatism like this then several "non-free" programs would have made it into the several Linux distributions by long now, thus increasing the functionality of the whole product tenfold. And even now, when many people download these programs first thing after installing a Linux distribution do we still have people around who whine "No, we can't distribute that with the distribution because it would be tainted". As asked before; what is this about anyway? To share the enjoyment and pleasure one could have with running and using a Linux distribution or to promote / enforce ones own personal idealism onto other people no matter what?
Issues like these really show IMO that while Linux is a very nice environment the whole steering and administration around it is still very fragile.
Re:Here's the newsforge article, plus 2 other link (Score:1, Interesting)
In any case, I'm beginning to greatly prefer the Apache 2.0 License to the GPL. Much simpler and, ironically, providers more freedom than the GPL.
Fanning the flames... (Score:1, Interesting)
licenses allowed. You could look at the code, but you could already do
anything with it all. Just about everybody in the 'open source' community
saw that type of license as a non-starter. With DRM in the hardware, we would
be in exactly the same situation; but for some reason this time it's okay...
Re:And so it begins (Score:2, Interesting)
Underestimating relevance (Score:5, Interesting)
I think BW underestimates the relevance of the FSF. Yes, Linux uses GPLv2 only. Yes Mozilla uses their own license. But if you look at the basic toolchain that Linux, Mozilla and the like use, the majority of that infrastructure's copyright rests with... the Free Software Foundation. Use GCC to compile? Depend on Bash, flex, bison? They'll be moving to GPLv3. Even something as basic as grep, chances are if you're on a Linux system you use the FSF's version of it.
It's also going to depend on developers, not companies (unless those companies are also the developers and copyright holders on the programs). I'd note that one of the tipping points for the GPL was when people started to find GPL'd software in commercial products which the code owners themselves were locked out of by lack of source code. I think the same pattern will repeat, with the GPLv3 being RMS-only for a bit and then it'll pick up steam when a few high-profile developers want to modify a neat device and find they're locked out of modifying their own code by DRM.
That said, it's unlikely the Linux kernel will ever move to GPLv3 regardless of what Linus thinks simply because of the infeasability of contacting every copyright holder. It's been mentioned as a protection: there's so many copyright holders no company (say, Microsoft) could get authorization from all of them to put their release of the Linux kernel under a more restrictive license. The same thing applies to any contemplated change to GPLv3.
law versus license (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with Richard Stallman's efforts to put clauses in GPL3 to alleviate the DRM and software patent problems. However, I don't have much hope that these clauses will be very effective.
I think that a much more effective course of action is to try to change the laws on DRM and software patents. I think that we should lobby governments all over the world to abolish software patents. In the case of DRM I think that the DRM copyright protection should be legal but that the DRM laws should not contain clauses making it illegal to create software or hardware which can copy DRM protected material. The act of copying copyrighted material should be illegal but the act of creating a copying machine should be legal.
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Steve Stites
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Here's the newsforge article, plus 2 other link (Score:3, Interesting)
The GPL v2 ensures that anyone else can build a more Free version of the Tivo-- one that would still appeal to the Tivo user base and still provide those who like to hack the box an ability to do so. Thus the GPL v2 makes Tivo's choice simply bad for business.
Quite frankly I don't think anyone cares what Tivo does on this matter. That is right-- nobody really cares because anyone can go out and install Tivo's kernel on other hardware platforms even if you can't use their hardware.
The real problem though is in the fear that large media companies will force users to stick with approved version on approved hardware. This is, I believe, an existential threat to open source.
I still don't like the GPL v3 for other reasons (the ability to add certain other restrictions such as source distribution to a user over a network connection by the software itself).
Re:Can you really tell us why? (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand and respect what it's trying to do, and I agree with most of the goals (though I do see possible value in some uses of DRM, and hence do not agree with that section), but I think the license as a whole needs a clean-up and simplification. It's trying to catch every visible instance where it was felt that GPLv2 failed, and in doing so may end up being too specific and limiting, unable to adapt to the needs of the development community.
In addition (and this is admittedly a bit trivial), I've heard complaints here for years about the length of Microsoft EULAs, but GPLv3 is getting up there in length, too. As a quick comparison of some common licenses:
I guess in summary, my feeling is that while GPLv2 could use some tweaks to handle some oddities, an entirely new version is not necessary. I don't think I'm alone in opining that it would be better to have seen GPLv2.1 than 3.0.
Compliance with real world right improved ? (Score:1, Interesting)
But can anybody highlight me if the v3 is bringing any fixed toward compliance with real world right ?
For instance, GPL is not "strictly legal" in most european countries, that is the reason for instance a French open source consurtium has created their own license CeCILL ( see http://www.cecill.info/index.en.html [cecill.info] ) that is basically GPL but fixing the non-legal items of GPL toward the european union & french republic right.
I would be very happy to see FSF consider european right and fixe the points that are causing issues so that any european union person can use this license "eyes-shut".
Anybody on this ?
Re:And so it begins (Score:1, Interesting)
This sort of moral grandstanding pisses me off. It accomplishes nothing other than to serve as a sort of self-esteem booster for rigid ideologues for when they inevitably fail to adapt to reality. It's mental masturbation that has all of the pleasantries of a cannon going off on a playground because of how many people it denies a future to. You want freedom? Learn to live in *gasp* british society. That means that some people might not like "American Freedom".
Re:Stop the insanity! (Score:2, Interesting)
RMS is on a crusade to frame the argument in the words of his choosing. By doing so, he is making it so that when you hear him or others like him speak, you will remember the context in which he speaks. By this, he can be assured that others cannot distort what he is trying to communicate. And if that communication also ends up making people evaluate just how much freedom is in their free-as-in-beer software, then perhaps people will be more open to considering what the FSF and GPL have to offer.
Re:Spot the flaw in this logic... (Score:2, Interesting)
There is no flaw in that logic.
Which is the entire point of the GPLv3...
If hardware can be closed to modified code, that was obtained from GPL'd code, and as 'Linux' does use GNU GPL'd code (Linus's past options are not relevant, they have already been made), then it follows that AMD/Linux, Intel/Linux, would be a copyleft violation, unless they allow modified code to run.
This does not stop hardware manufactures from doing as they please - but if they are going to lock out modified code, they have to write their own code, not use GPL'd code.
So to the extent that modified code can run on AMD/Intel (and, of course it does), it's quite fair to say AMD/GNU/Linux or Intel/GNU/Linux.
Just credit the GNU part.
GPL is an option, not an ultimatum (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm getting tired of reading about how RMS is using GPLv3 to impose his ideals on everyone. He may well believe that all software should be free, but that is most definitely not what he's trying to accomplish with the GPL. If his main goal was to make all software Free Software he'd have to do it with legal challenges on the concept of intellectual property etc.
While he may be involved in that, GPL is different. GPL doesn't attempt to overturn the status quo, it provides an alternative to it. While RMS and Lessig et al. work on the long fight to get rational patent and copyright reforms enacted, GPL provides an immediate option for people that want to develop an alternative model. It gives you the opportunity to share your code without fear that someone else will benefit from it without sharing their improvements. If you prefer to write closed code, you can still do that; nothing in the GPL prevents you from writing your own code and releasing it under any other license.
The latest additions just address a few new issues. If you think DRM is fine, and you don't care if someone modifies your code to make it effectively unmodifiable via DRM hardware, then you can continue to use GPL2 or any other license. If, however, you think that's a bad thing, you'll be able to use GPL3 and protect your code. Currently, no other license addresses this issue. But still, there's nothing in the GPL, 2 or 3, that imposes itself upon anyone. You aren't forced to use the GPL, nor are you forced to use GPL programs.
The point of the public consultation is to bring as many people on-board as possible, so that those of us who agree with the system enforced by the GPL will have the widest possible selection of projects to use/contribute to. If people would stop arguing about how irrelevant the GPL is becoming and choose to either 1)participate to make it better or 2)bugger off and use another license, maybe this would all go a little smoother.
yp.
Re:Those who write the software have moved on. (Score:3, Interesting)
for d in
strings $d/* | grep -i Copyright | grep "Free Software" | wc -l
done
Results:
So... There appears to be quite a few programs on my Debian GNU/Linux system that are still Copyright Free Software Foundation.
Bet hey, YMMV. Maybe I'm the only one running Debian [netcraft.com].
Re:Can you really tell us why? (Score:3, Interesting)
These have some restrictions in them that many devs would find onerous, but they're much more open than the standard EULA. A license covering use of the Windows source code (they do exist) are probably much longer and use a 3-ring binder, and are somewhat unique to each company or group involved as lawyers would certainly be participating in the drafting of the license.