Survey Says GPLv3 Is Shunned

willdavid writes in to note a survey of open source developers conducted by Evans Data that indicates a real rift in the community over GPLv3. The survey was based on in-depth interviews with 380 open source developers and no estimated margin of error was given. "Just 6 percent of developers working with open-source software have adopted the new GNU General Public License version 3... Also, two-thirds say they will not adopt GPLv3 anytime in the next year, and 43 percent say they will never implement the new license. Almost twice as many would be less likely to join a project that uses GPLv3 than would be likely to join... [Evans Data's CEO said] 'Developers are confused and divided about [the restrictions GPLv3 imposes], with fairly equal numbers agreeing with the restrictions, disagreeing with them, or thinking they will be unenforceable.'"

Maybe I want my code to be used Commercially!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care if my code is used by Megacorp, or Minicorp cause I may not want to write code to do something myself if you already did. If you were not smart enough or cared enough to make a profit your problem. This crap about oooh it can't be used cause you make money B.S. is crap. Copy, Paste, Done with Quota.

Re:Slow adoption is to be expected

[huckamania]

I think this attitude is why so many developers are turned off by the GPLv3.

Is there a clause in the GPLv3 that makes the "or later" mandatory? If that's the case, might as well sign it all over to the FSF or better yet just put "This software is released in whatever manner RMS decides at any time now or in the future".

Still, I wonder about the legality of enforcing a license that doesn't exist or didn't exist when you first got the source. "This software is released under a future license which we will let you know about when we get around to it" doesn't sound very legal.

Re:Confused... M$? (or not)

[joe 155]

couldn't say who actually coughed up the money for this one, but they do list M$ as clients. We all know M$ aren't above what we might (generously) call "interesting" techniques when it comes to dealing with the GPL (not least, IIRC, calling it a "cancer"). Evans also list some (what I would call) nicer companies though - especially from the open source POV - including but not limited to RedHat and Sun. You can check out the full list here;

http://www.evansdata.com/company/clients.php [evansdata.com]

Re:Not quite

[einhverfr]

The problem is far more subtle than most realize.

The basic issue has to do with whether or not the BSD code can be "relicensed" (in RMS and Eben Moglen's words) as GPL code without making any changes. While it is clear that copyright-worthy changes can be under any license, the question is whether the original code licensed under the BSD license can be. IMHO (IANAL) this talk of "relicensing" seems like legal mumbo-jumbo devoid of any accepted meaning.

The problem is that the GPL 3 is only compatible with licenses which allow this "relicensing" *independant of* other copyrights being enforced. This is clear in the Rationale documents, and in the opinions of both RMS and Mr Moglen. In other words, it requires that I can extend the requirements of the GPL3 to any and all parts of the code and any dependencies not specifically excluded from the Corresponding Source requirements without enforcing any of my own copyrights in the process.

I think that the BSDL always follows copyrighted elements released under that license and cannot be removed because this would require removing the permission grant from the code. Hence the additional permissions cannot meaningfully be removed without adding substantive code to the file. Because the GPL 3 requires that this is possible by merely conveying the software, it seems to me that this is a big problem. The authors of many of our dependencies agree and out of respect for them, I won't support moving the license.

Re:Slow adoption is to be expected

[donaldm]

Actually the Article is not that clear who the 6% of developers that are adopting the GPL3. If they are Redhat and IBM and they rather like the GPL3 http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-6171921-7.html [news.com] then you have nearly 40% of Linux development. Throw in HP and possibly Novell then you can add another 5% to 10% more. I can't see SUN going down the GPL3 path but then you never know. Can anyone shed any light on this because the article does not really say that much although I did find the source of the data at the Evans Data Corporation site http://www.evansdata.com/ [evansdata.com] but again that was not that helpful since you have to have to register.