Should Developers Switch to GPLv3? 174
Isaac IANAL asks: "Victor Loh of ExtremeTech writes about the General Public License version 3's clause, which requires releasing digital signature keys — in other words, the software should be able to retain interoperability when modified. The article raises an objection, citing Linus Torvalds, that the so-called TiVoisation clause would inhibit open-source adoption in embedded devices among entities such as governments, health care providers, and finance firms. The issue has been discussed on Slashdot many times before. If you're a developer for a platform that needs to run signed code, could you use software under the GPLv3, or does the GPLv3 (at its current, unreleased state) truly inhibit your control as a developer over your device?"
Re:Stop spreading confusion! (Score:2, Interesting)
What's sad is that Linus sees what Tivo has done as "legitimate." Go back a few decades, Linus. When RMS couldn't maintain his laser printer driver, RMS could have just used other hardware. Obviously, RMS didn't like that idea. He didn't like it so much, that the GPL was invented practically as a response to that incident. GPL exists because "just use other hardware" was judged to be totally impractical. If Linus didn't agree with the premise of the GPL, then he should have used some other license (and let his project die in obscurity in 1992).
Re:Not yet -- "GPLv3" Should Become "SGPL"? (Score:5, Interesting)
This shouldn't be named "GPLv3" when done and finalized. If they do that, there will be a big clusterfuck of confusion and uncertainty, coming from "GPL" softwares with crucially differing GPL versions -- v2 vs. v3 -- and this will harm business adoption of open-source software. Not completely clueful managers and officers get confused, they lose face, so they go elsewhere. (That is, stay with closed-source.)
"GPLv3" should be named "Stricter GPL -- SGPL" (or something like that), and "GPLv2" should be kept just "GPL" -- the familiar and famous thing that nobody has a problem with.
And anybody responding that we FSF hippies don't give a damn what the corporate world wants or needs... I understand the sentiment ("we do tools for ourselves and that's all"), but it would be good to have FOSS spread further, and in the biz domain any such ambiquity or other "perception problem" can be a bigger problem than anything related to quality or technology. Make the GPLv3 into what you want, but make it clearly separate from the current well-established GPL.
Re:Not yet -- "GPLv3" Should Become "SGPL"? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:No, don't be *that guy* (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, I don't see it that way at all. Yes, you have to turn over enough that the community can actually use the code you're giving back to them, and that seems perfectly reasonable to me. To give back modifications that are useless to the community because of patents or hardware DRM is to spit in the face of what the GPL is all about.
You've missed the point. (Score:1, Interesting)
Now, you could always refuse to offer such service, due to their modifications. But then they'll likely turn around and badmouth your company as often as is possible, saying that you refused to fix their broken device. Of course, they probably won't mention that it was their unsupported modification that caused the breakage. People do tend to ignore facts that hurt their egos. In the end, your company will get a bad reputation, even though you make your device accessible to customer modification.
The easiest thing to do may be to prevent said situation by disallowing for user modifications of the device you produce. The GPLv2 (and possibly GPLv3) may cause problems with doing this.
Re:No, don't be *that guy* (Score:5, Interesting)
Keeping these points in mind, let's look at your examples:
If you are really interested in building a community, choose a license that
So if I decide to stop contributing to your GPL3 project, I have to surrender my copyright to the code I've contributed? That's news to me.
[GPL3 forces you] to turn over every single thing to the whole community before you get the blessing to participate.
This is not true. First, no one is forcing you to use this license. You make it out to sound like the FSF will shun you unless you use only this specific license, which is not true. Second, GPL3 does not force you to give up everything. You still hold the copyright to code your wrote, so you can also release it under other licenses. If you release a trademarked program, you can specify how you wish for the mark to be used.
Got a patent? Sorry, bud, check that at the door.
See freedoms 2 and 3.
Want to run specialized programs that require secrecy of code? Not on this platform, man. Want to mingle your closed code with our open widget? Give up all your source first.
You do not state the technical manner in which the "secrecy" and "mingling" is happening. Depending on this, these could very well be prohibited by the GPL2, completely invalidating them as fodder for your diatribe.
So what you get is a bunch of people who are actually leeches
This is pretty hilarious. How does the new GPL allow people to "leech" anything? No one is being forced to use this license. I'm guessing you're talking about those evil guys who will no doubt incorporate BSD code into their GPL3 programs. Yeah, those guys are totally violating the spirit of that license. Oh wait.
no one else outside the community can even look at for fear of contamination.
This is no different from looking at code that implements a software patent, or signing an NDA to look at proprietary code.
If you want to profit off of others and view everyone that looks at your code without contribution as suspicious, choose the new GPL.
If by "profit" you mean "allow everyone the freedom to use, study, modify, and distribute my code while preventing others from taking away these freedoms", then I agree with you. That's a pretty good profit derived from using this license.
Also, I fail to see how choosing the GPL3 would force me to view those who study my code as "suspicious".
In all, I fail to see how any of your points are really valid. You fail to actually define what you mean by key words in your argument. Of course, this allows you to shield yourself from having to debate any real issues, such as the meaning of "freedom", "rights", or "responsibilities". So perhaps this was intentional.
The question is FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
It simply requires that you provide the user with the ability to use/create a functional key which provides identical functionality.
That way you can't end up with a situation where, say, Microsoft, uses their market clout to make hardware manufacturers release 'secure' boxes which only boot from Microsoft keys, and then they release a Linux kernel signed by Microsoft.... Now you have the source code to the Microsoft Linux kernel, but no 'comodity' box that will boot your recompiled kernel because they all require Microsoft's key.
Now, Microsoft (and Linus) can keep their private key private -- they just have to provide you with a key (any key) that will boot your box ... and They just can't punish you for using your own kernel (as long as it provides identical functionality).