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Number of GPL v3 projects tops 2,000

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Apr 02, 2008 08:46 AM
from the i'm-sure-rms-is-very-happy dept.
GNU is Not Unix
Da Massive writes "The number of open-source projects that use the GNU General Public License Version 3 has grown to more than 2,000, according to Palamida, which sells software and services for tracking open-source code within a customer's code base. 'Our database now contains over 2,000 projects that are using the GPL v3. "At this rate the GPL v3 is being adopted by 1,000 projects every 4-5 months, and if the trend continues, the license will be used by 5,000 projects by the end of the year," states a recent posting on Palamida's blog.'"
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Submission: Number of GPL v3 projects tops 2,000 by Da Massive (559116)
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  • Linear interpolation... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by adpsimpson (956630) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @08:52AM (#22939926)

    "At this rate the GPL v3 is being adopted by 1,000 projects every 4-5 months, and if the trend continues, the license will be used by 5,000 projects by the end of the year," states a recent posting on Palamida's blog."

    It could also mean there has been a rush to convert projects, or that there is an exponentially increasing number under the license.

    A simple linear interpretation of the data isn't that useful - maybe I should RTFA to see if there's a graph or something?

    But hey, this is slashdot! Read the article??!

    • Re:Linear interpolation... (Score:5, Informative)

      by qortra (591818) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:00AM (#22940012) Homepage
      I wouldn't want anybody straining themselves, so I'll do it for you.

      The article itself does not have a distribution, but the blog linked to by the article does: Palamida blog complete with chart [blogspot.com]. There was a definite surge last year of GPL3 projects, followed a sharp decline in December. The number of add projects, however, has been slowly climbing for the first few months of 2008.
      • Also, a 5000 project end-of-year prediction seems very optimistic to me. I think a more reasonable prediction would be 3500-4000.

      • Re:Linear interpolation... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Otter (3800) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:13AM (#22940112) Journal
        It looks like they're adding ~180 new projects per month. With nine months remaining, that doesn't come out to 4000 by year end, let alone 5000.

        Additional thoughts:

        1) Any time I read something involving "If this trend continues", even if it's based on solid data I hear it in my head in Disco Stu's voice, which tends to undercut its credibility.

        2) This ("Four new GPL 3 projects this week!") is arguably the most boring blog in the world.

      • Re:Linear interpolation... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Bogtha (906264) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:37AM (#22940300)

        There was a definite surge last year of GPL3 projects, followed a sharp decline in December.

        This makes it sound like there was a decline in GPL3 projects, which isn't the case. There was a decline in the growth rate of GPL3 projects, meaning that the number of GPL3 projects grew, only not as fast as in previous months.

        • Re:Linear interpolation... (Score:4, Informative)

          by qortra (591818) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:49AM (#22940394) Homepage
          You're right: my bad. Describing statistics can get very wordy, and I was trying to mitigate the wordiness - I guess I got carried away.

          Just as an aside, I am in no way trying to detract from the accomplishments here; this is a very nice v3 adoption rate. I was just agreeing with the original poster that the statistics deserve better interpretation than a 'grade school average over time'.
        • This makes it sound like there was a decline in GPL3 projects, which isn't the case.

          It's probably not the case, but it's hard to say. How many GPLv3 projects get abandoned per month? Without that statistic, it's impossible to estimate the change in the total number of GPLv3 projects.
      • SO there are a bunch of projects that can easilly be converted to GPL3. By December most of the Really Easy Ones were ported, then they needed development time in to move anything that couldn't be GPL3 and make GPL3 versions of such. And the slow climbing is the fact that the GPL3 Apps are being completed at different rates.

        My main problem with the GPL/3 (well the GPL in general) is that it is very strict and many of their followers are very religious towards the GPL, What RMS Says must be right additude.

    • Graph (Score:2, Informative)

      by Per Abrahamsen (1397)

      A simple linear interpretation of the data isn't that useful - maybe I should RTFA to see if there's a graph or something?

      The original source [palamida.com] has a graph, kind of, and the increase seems pretty much linear to me.

    • If the estimated data point is not between known data points, then this process is extrapolation [wikipedia.org], not interpolation.
  • I wonder if all of them are off the dependency of GPLv2 code and don't cause a violation in the process of going GPLv3. It must be a pretty hard task making sure you don't shoot yourself in the foot while moving from one license version to an incompatible one.
    • This is exactly what's stopping my project from adopting GPLv3. Stylus Toolbox uses GladeGen [linuxjournal.com] for some of its more complicated windows (I did the initial design using GladeGen, but the rest of the project just uses stock PyGTK code).

      The problem is that the linked-to article, all the documentation that exists for GladeGen, only mentions that the code is GPL; it doesn't specify a version and there is no COPYING file or mention of a license in any of the files or source code. So I'm not entirely certain as to the legal status of the code other than it's probably licensed under some version of the GPL.

      If David Reed or Linux Journal could come forward and clarify the legal status, that would be most helpful. Maybe someone with a legal background might provide some help, too.

      • It should say at the top of every source code file.
      • This may help

        Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
        Emphasis mine

      • That is pretty tough to discern. I imagine that it has to be GPLv2 or LGPLv2 though. It seems that GladeGen Uses GTK which is LGPLv2 and Gnome (libglade)libraries which I can't seem to find a hard license version over.

        It appears that the license references on the pages I could find simply point to a FSF site with the current GPLv3 license. This seems to violate the GPL in and if itself because you are supposed to reference the version and a statement about later versions on not. It could be that it is alrea

  • Twice nothing is still nothing ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by trolltalk.com (1108067) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @08:57AM (#22939984) Homepage Journal

    At this rate the GPL v3 is being adopted by 1,000 projects every 4-5 months, and if the trend continues, the license will be used by 5,000 projects by the end of the year," states a recent posting on Palamida's blog.

    Put it into perspective ... without a comparison to the number (and importance) of GPLv2 projects, it is one of those meaningless statistics.

    You'd think this was a press release from Microsoft ...

    How many GPLv2 projects are there out there? Easily over 100,000. Call me back in 5 years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by qortra (591818)

      How many GPLv2 projects are there out there? Easily over 100,000

      Out of curiousity, where are you getting this statistic? It might be more accurate, but on the other hand, it is probably more reasonable to compare numbers in the same database (with consistent identification methods and all).

      According to the blog [blogspot.com], there are "6446 GPL v2 or later" projects in the database, and assuming that more than 2000 of those are v3, that leaves just a little bit over 4400 are v2. Assuming the databased isn't biased towards v3 projects in any way, that means that almost 30% of pr

      • I'm not necessarily saying that your statistic is wrong; I would just like to see a source, and I definitely would prefer to do apples-to-apples comparisons (consistent collection methods).
        Did you know that 91% of the statistics found on discussion fora is made up by the poster? And that research furthermore indicates that if the poster has "troll" in his handle, the likelihood increases to 97% Amazing, but true.

      • According to the blog, there are "6446 GPL v2 or later" projects in the database, and assuming that more than 2000 of those are v3, that leaves just a little bit over 4400 are v2.

        You are misinterpreting the data. "GPL v2 or later" means that these projects originally chose the GPL v2 but used the FSF's recommended wording that automatically allows people to use a later version of the GPL. So 6446 is the number of projects that can be counted as both GPL v2 and GPL v3, and excludes the projects tha

      • I wouldn't call SAMBA a "nothing" project.

        For those of us who have moved completely away from Microsoft, it IS nothing ...

        Where I am, all the important stuff is on linux or bsd machines - you want it, you can get it via svn or ftp or http or ssh. If you can't figure that out, you don't need access to it anyway.

        • Re:Twice nothing is still nothing ... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by qortra (591818) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:37AM (#22940296) Homepage

          For those of us who have moved completely away from Microsoft, [Samba] IS nothing ...
          False. Samba is a fantastic utility, and a very acceptable protocol (it would be great if it were completely open). It is mountable in a unix filesystem, it can be safely authenticated over untrusted networks, it is spoken by countless devices and operating systems (not just Microsoft), supports two way transfers, supports simultaneous transfers, and it is reasonably fast. You stated 4 replacement protocols. Here is an analysis of where and why they fail my criteria set.

          • svn - its none-trivial usage aside, it is not designed for the same kinds of transfers as Samba. Primarily, it isn't designed for streaming. For instance, I wouldn't consider it viable for the archival of playback of music and movie collections.
          • ftp - stop joking with me. Usually single threaded transfer, laggy, not usually viable as a mounted disk (unless Fuse is used), and unsafe authentication in untrusted environments. This protocol is ancient, and it shows its age badly.
          • http - by default, unidirectional. Requires specific and non-standardized handlers to send information the other way. Also, no standard for file permissions, no safe method for authentication (without https).
          • ssh - The only one in this bunch that actually has a shot. It meets most of my requirements, especially now that you can mount an ssh filesystem with Fuse. However, that is still a fringe mechanism for mounting. Most embedded devices (even Linux based ones) do not support this. They support Samba. For examples (in case they are demanded), look at Media and Content streamers at AVS Forum [slashdot.org]. Many of them are Linux based, but almost all of them support Samba, uPNP, and possibly Apple Rendezvous (or whatever it is). None of your protocols can be found.
          • nfs (which you forgot) - Also close. I spent a lot of time trying to make NFS work in my network, but much to my chagrin, it simply isn't safe over an untrusted network. You can always spoof file UIDs, file GIDs, and IP addresses (unless you have really nice switches).

          • I also left out fish://, (and sftp), but let's face it - people using Mr. Softie aren't going to be using fish:// any time soon.

            • Re:Twice nothing is still nothing ... (Score:5, Informative)

              by qortra (591818) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @10:57AM (#22940930) Homepage
              Since you want to split hairs, SSH isn't a file transfer protocol. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that when you said "ssh", you meant "sftp/scp". These, by the way, are trivially different. They both use SSH has a delivery mechanism. In my experience, servers and clients that support one probably support the other. Read the following for more information Overview of SFTP, FTPS, SCP, FTP [geekswithblogs.net].

              As for FISH (another protocol using the SSH delivery mechanism), you still have the obscurity problem (worse than ever).

              people using Mr. Softie
              I'm confused; are you talking about Samba here? Do you think that avoiding Samba makes you "harder" or something? Simply, Samba/CIFS is often the best tool for the job, even when Microsoft systems are not in play. Maybe you think it makes you more hardcore to use a huge hammer when you should be using a screwdriver, but it doesn't. It makes you a moron.

              • No, I just like keeping my systems free of any possible "patent issues" or other FUD avenues.

                Unlike samba [microsoft-watch.com], which, by licensing Microsoft's IP, is actually helping to maintain Microsoft's dominance.

                Expect to see the "same shit, different day" with MS-OOXML. the KDE team has it right - they will just ignore OOXML. Why waste time and energy, and further Mr. Softie's ends?

                • I just like keeping my systems free of any possible "patent issues"

                  A worthy goal.

                  or other FUD avenues

                  Not as big a deal for me. I've been vaccinated against FUD.

                  The Samba/CIFS team is simply awesome. IMHO, they are open source heroes. By blindly reverse engineering the samba protocol, they gave us a stable and legally safe implementation of the protocol. How do I know this? Because Debian includes it in their main repository. The same Debian whose anality makes Nurse Ratched look like a hippie.

                  If you truly are concerned with Samba future legality and encumberance, I suggest you ment

          • * AFS - comparably complex setup, but does it all. Even makes me coffee in the morning.

          • http - by default, unidirectional. Requires specific and non-standardized handlers to send information the other way. Also, no standard for file permissions, no safe method for authentication (without https).
            Both WebDAV and HTTPS are IETF standards, and widely implemented (even Windows supports them). The combination supports bidirectional file transfer, authentication, versioning, complex permissions, and a lot of other features.

  • Who cares how many 'projects'? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Megaweapon (25185) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @08:57AM (#22939986) Homepage
    There's gobs of projects on Sourceforge that have a license stated, yet no code. A LOC number would at least be somewhat useful.

  • How many of those projects are relevant? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GreatBunzinni (642500) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:05AM (#22940038)
    I mean, I've created a small library which is comprised of a few thousands lines of code and I released it under the GPL. Yet, although it is a GPLed project, I wouldn't even want to compare it to Apache or the linux kernel, let alone count it as an equal.

  • Calm Down (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stry_cat (558859) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:11AM (#22940088) Journal
    I'd like to know how many of the projects fall into the "Hey look my project which no one other than myself contributes to and uses, is now using GPL3" Until the kernel switches from GPLv2 it won't really be considered a success in many people's eyes.

    However I have a more important question. Why is this written like it is a war between GPLv3 and other licenses? If the virus of GPLv3 doesn't spread we're all doomed. No folks that's not the case. Don't get so wrapped up in this stuff. So what no one uses GPLv3? So what if everyone uses it? If software doesn't meet one's needs (and that includes having cumbersome provisions in your license) one will either write their own or use someone else's software. Really this all works out in the end. Don't have so much emotion invested in things that you can't really affect the outcome.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by domatic (1128127)
      It's just another license to flamewar over. Additionally, almost any discussion about the GPL (any version), FSF, or RMS is almost automatically guaranteed to generate more heat than light. My own take on it is that if I'm capable of improving something I find useful then I'll improve it. I'll do it under whatever license it came under because "he who writes the code chooses the license". I do avoid things covered by "Jim Bob's Personal Open License" and stick to things covered by the majors: MIT, BSD,

    • Until the kernel switches from GPLv2 it won't really be considered a success in many people's eyes

      Or until another kernel (Hurd) can replace it. That would likely take a couple of years, too, considering how long it took for the Linux kernel to get the point where it was this reliable.

      Why is this written like it is a war between GPLv3 and other licenses?

      Because the GPL licenses have a tendency to not play nice with other licenses, effectively making it a war. Do the apache license and gplv3 play nice? Probably. Does GPLv2 and GPLv3 play nice? Probably not.

      The other side of this is a fight between the two open source camps, the idealists and the pragmatists. Stallman

  • Is that number of new projects started with GPLv3 license or projects relicensed under GPLv3?

  • Yeah (Score:3, Funny)

    by Y-Crate (540566) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @10:10AM (#22940574)
    And 1950 of them are text editors. :)
  • ...thats over 2k projects that are not free to be distributed with certain hardware.

    • Re:And this matters, why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sumdumass (711423) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:02AM (#22940020) Journal
      The GPLv2 is the GPL we all have used since sometime in the 90's. The GPLv3 decide to add some activism onto it and as a result isn't compatible with the GPLv2 anymore.

      My main gripe is that it doesn't do exactly what it claims to do because of the way the GPLv2 upgrade is worded and a few technical wordings. Other people don't like it because their projects are dependent on GPLv2 only software or semi-closed software which the GPLv3 doesn't allow. Projects like the linux kernel won't be moving to GPLv3 and it is pointless to dual license GPLv3 code do it creates a lot of confusion to boot.

      • Re:And this matters, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by domatic (1128127) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:34AM (#22940272)

        The GPLv2 is the GPL we all have used since sometime in the 90's. The GPLv3 decide to add some activism onto it and as a result isn't compatible with the GPLv2 anymore.


        The GPLv2 was also an implementation of activism and it too has plenty of detractors. Any license out of the FSF is going to be an implementation of activism. It's like the people who like Fox News "Because it is SOOOOO unbiased!". It's plenty biased but the bias lines up with their personal inclinations, causes little cognitive dissonance and is therefore seen as unbiased. In the same vein, the GPLv2 aligns with the goals of it's users and is thus seen as a purely practical tool for implementing them. What GPLv2 users who gripe about the GPLv3 REALLY mean is that they agree with some but not all of the FSF's "activism".

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by cbart387 (1192883)
          Agreed. I have a problem with the viral aspect of it since you're telling people it must be wide-and-open. If I ever start a project I'll keep it open because I believe in sharing. I do not believe in telling others to share because that's for them to decide. I'll stick with the BSD or even better the beerware [wikipedia.org] license. In my definition of free, they're more free than the GPL, despite RMS's opinion.

          • Re:And this matters, why? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by TheRaven64 (641858) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @10:40AM (#22940818) Homepage Journal
            I often thought about using a modified Beerware license which, rather than granting the author the right to buy me a beer, imposes considering buying me a beer as a condition of the license. Because the license imposes a condition not present in the GPL, it would be incompatible with the GPL, but compatible with pretty much every other Free Software license.
          • When you release a piece of code under the BSD license, if I adopt it, build a business around its use, and then you get a patent on the technology in the code, I'm screwed.

            So, I have two choices. I can use GPLv3 software and know I can't be screwed, or I can develop my own solution.

            In this situation, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if you wrote the code or not, because it's not safe for me to rely on it.

            You say you do not believe in telling others to share. That's not what this is about. The

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by sumdumass (711423)
              Just don't forget that with the GPLv3 or BSD, if he released the code, you build a business around it, and I get a patent on the technology in the code, your still just as screwed.

              In fact, there is very little protection difference in this respect between the GPLv2 and GPLv3 let alone BSD and similar licenses.

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by ShieldW0lf (601553)
                I'm referring to people who are building a business using the software, or using a modified version of the software, as a tool to do their day to day operations. Not people who make code for third parties as their day to day business operations.

                Now, if you release something under the BSD, and you have a patent pending, and I use it to run my nuts and bolts factory, I could wake up one day and find out that you own all the profits my business generates.

                If you released it under the GPLv3, I would already hav
        • I never thought the GPLv2 wasn't ripe with activism. It was just that it is the license we are accustom to. The differences between the GPLv2 and GPLv3 is that the GPLv3 added _some_ activism to it. OR should I say added more to it.

          Not everyone is into the activism. They saw the GPLv2 as a practical license. They don't like the activism associated with the GPLv3, I am one of them.

    • Re:And this matters, why? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShieldW0lf (601553) on Wednesday April 02 2008, @09:40AM (#22940312) Journal
      The GPLv3 is important for reasons that include:

      1) If you receive software and hardware together from a vendor, and the software is released under the GPLv3 license, you have legal assurance that they will not attempt through hardware to prevent you exercising your right to change the code and deploy your changes. If you receive software released under the GPLv2 license, you do not have these assurances. You can reasonably expect that the pressure on the vendor to increase revenue will lead to them attempting to rent out the control they have over you to third parties.

      2) If you use or redistribute software, and the software is released under the GPLv3 license, you have legal assurances that you will not wake up one morning and find that the software you have come to rely on is now subject to patents that the vendor received. If you receive software released under the GPLv2 license, you could suddenly be forced to pay large sums of money or stop using the technology. This is a large risk that can tank a business model that relied on having liberty to grow without increased intellectual property costs and suddenly does not have that liberty.

      • 1) If you receive software and hardware together from a vendor, and the software is released under the GPLv3 license, you have legal assurance that they will not attempt through hardware to prevent you exercising your right to change the code and deploy your changes.

        No, they can't do that anyway, you can always run it on non-crippled hardware. What it prevents them from doing is selling hardware that's crippled to only accept their version(s) of the software, ie the software license is dictating features

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