A Year of GPLv3 242
javipas writes "GPLv3 and LGPLv3 were released one year ago, on 29 June 2007. Palamida, who tracks Open Source projects, has made a study of the current situation of these licenses along with AGPLv3, which was released later, in November. The number of projects that have made the transition to these licenses has grown over the last months, and it seems than AGPLv3 has captured a great interest lately. Black Duck Software, a company that tracks Open Source projects too, has made its own study with similar results, and although GPLv3 and its variants have a good adoption rate, the interviews published on the Palamida site (Stallman, Chris Di Bona) show that the acceptance of GPLv3 has still a long way to walk."
Anyone see much of a difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's two big news - the anti-tivoization and anti-patent clause. The rest are niceties like better internationalization, compatibility with other licenses etc.
Now, the anti-tivoization clause is rather weak as long as the kernel doesn't go GPLv3. It protects your work from being used in a tivo, but not creating a tivo. If the kernel went GPLv3 on the other hand, you'd have a big problem making any kind of tivo as any code running on top could be modified using a modified kernel. The scares of the "appliance PC-lookalike" seem quite overrated at this point, there's a few special appliance boxes but no big whoop. The anti-patent clause... well, I'm still waiting for anyone with serious patent claims to actually claim them. Didn't Microsoft have 200 or so? Or was that just a bunch of hot air. As long as it's nothing but hot air and FUD, it doesn't seem to change much at all.
Maybe RMS still is a visionary but I think in this case he's seen further ahead in the crystal ball than where we are. I still haven't seen any compelling cases where the GPLv3 is needed.
I believe you mean freedom # -1 (Score:5, Insightful)
...the tivo makers would switch to using BSD, or something else with a license that doesn't infringe freedom 2 (freedom to redistribute).
The GPL doesn't inhibit freedom 2 at all, unless you wish to use it to remove freedoms 0-n from everyone else.
What you're thinking about is freedom -1: The freedom to take someone else's work for free, modify it, and put onerous restrictions on everyone further along the distribution change. Or more succinctly put: the freedom to fuck your neighbour. Which yes, the GPL v2 tries to prevent, and the GPL v3 prevents more successfully.
Re:Anyone see much of a difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, yeah. He always does. That's why he's a visionary.
Re:I've seen an effect (Score:3, Insightful)
I want to share the code, not enforce political views I disagree with.
No matter how good you think the intentions you have are. If *insert corporation here* wants your code they can take it and use it to create restrictions for the user. The GPLv3 allows the user to take away those and use it on the product. Hardly enforcing political views. Basically, the GPL is to allow the most freedom for end users and make sure that the end users can trust you. If say Linus was hired by MS and decided to close down all of Linux sites, you could still get the kernel. If MS wanted to make a backdoor in the kernel code and sell it as Windows 7, you had the right to take that out despite how much MS wants your computer to be zombified into submission to the *AA.
GPL sharing vs. BSD sharing (Score:2, Insightful)
I want to share the code, not enforce political views I disagree with.
OK, I can understand wanting to share code but with a BSD style license the people you're sharing your code with are under no obligation to keep sharing it. Some people think that code that is shared should stay shared otherwise the point of sharing is largely defeated. If you feel that way then a GPL license is what you need. It's not about politics - it's just about choosing a license that fits your view of what 'shared code' should mean.
Political Views (Score:3, Insightful)
If the GPLv3 prevents products like Tivo from appearing, then it's a Bad Thing.
People really need to realize that someone else making money doesn't harm them. This "I want everyone else to suffer" pseudo-socialism is NOT making the world a better place, just a slightly more egalitarian one.
How does a derivative work hurt me? (Score:2, Insightful)
...freedom -1: The freedom to take someone else's work for free, modify it, and put onerous restrictions on everyone further along the distribution change. Or more succinctly put: the freedom to fuck your neighbour. Which yes, the GPL v2 tries to prevent, and the GPL v3 prevents more successfully.
How is this "fucking your neighbor"? So we write some code, and now a cool new consumer product appears somewhere that I can buy (or not) if I want. I have one more option in my life, which means I am slightly better off than I was before and it COST ME NOTHING.
This is what free software is all about. It's not about trying to stop people from making money, it's about making cool stuff available so that people can have better lives.
Re:I've seen an effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Good for you. I personally have written a lot of little utilities (web-applications and other bullshit) which I released in public domain.
I never understood the whole point of BSD, ever. If you want to share the code, so much so that whether I am not using it at all or using it to earn millions is something you don't care, then why are you licensing it?
Not trolling... seriously I am asking.
Re:Political Views (Score:5, Insightful)
giving all of us the free choice to buy one or not.
And when I donate source code I donate it with the intention that any end user be allowed to modify and run it, wherever or on whatever they recieved that code from. If Tivo wants to prevent the end user from doing that they have the free choice to not use my code.
If the GPLv3 prevents products like Tivo from appearing, then it's a Bad Thing.
If Tivo's abuse of the intent of GPL prevents products _better_ than Tivo from appearing, I'd say that's a Bad Thing. And finding examples where customers would have a better product if they could load modified software on their Tivo ain't exactly hard.
People really need to realize that someone else making money doesn't harm them.
Most Free software proponents have no problem with someone else making money. They do, however, have a problem with someone else harming others.
pseudo-socialism is NOT making the world a better place, just a slightly more egalitarian one
Free software is the epitome of free market economics; it's the enforcement of absolute competition.
Considering that proprietary software builds upon state protected monopoly rights and, as is becoming quite obvious, has more in common with former soviet style state factories (you _will_ use Vista and you _will_ like it; no alternate providers here), I'd say comments about socialism are weak.
GPLv2 and GPLv3 have the same spirit (Score:4, Insightful)
If you disagree with GPLv3, you also should disagree with GPLv2. The spirit is the same "dont let anyone take a free-software piece of code, modified it and ban you from modify his modification".
But GPLv2 had a bug. TIVO has found a way to do that. You can modify the code, but the hardware will reject your modification. Your right to "hack" with the source code has been abolished.
I dont see any reason why you should like GPLv2 and not GPLv3.
If you think there is nothing wrong with people taking your code and not letting you play with his code, you should have gone with a BSD-style license. Otherwise GPLv3 is an improvement of GPLv2.
I know that some people think that GPLv3 is bad (most notably Linux Torvalds) but after reading their objections I really dont understand their logic. It seems to me more of an ego fight against RMS than sensible disagreement.
Re:promotional "studies" (Score:3, Insightful)
And profit is the only reason for a person to try and bolster their image? Ideologists never do?
Re:I believe you mean freedom # -1 (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a lie.
The truth is that you can distribute GPL 3 code on any hardware you want, even hardware that refuses to run unsigned binaries, and including the fucking TiVo! All you have to do is give the user the key so that he can sign modified binaries himself and run them.
Re:I believe you mean freedom # -1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite. You can even do that, if you also give the user the ability to "approve" binaries himself.
Re:I believe you mean freedom # -1 (Score:3, Insightful)
Putting it in bold doesn't make it so.
There is no practical difference between "you may not distribute this on hardware with misfeature X" and "you may only distribute this on hardware with misfeature X if you make make misfeature X completely ineffective".
Re:I believe you mean freedom # -1 (Score:2, Insightful)
But there is a technical one. And your post was, indeed, technically untrue.
Re:I believe you mean freedom # -1 (Score:3, Insightful)
or later (Score:3, Insightful)
The actual number of projects using GPLv3 seems quite small, about 3000, and of course the most important GPL project, the Linux kernel, will never change for both legal reasons (not all committers are available), and Linus' ideological reasons.
Is the GPLv3 even meaningful if the kernel does not change licenses? My understanding is that it was primarily designed to undermine Tivo and DRM, which cannot be done in a meaningful if the kernel isn't part of the deal.
The article tries to conflate licenses issued with the "or later" clause as GPLv3; however, I think they misunderstand the legal implications of that clause. It means that the *user* may follow the terms and conditions of later licenses; however, the user does not gain any further rights in GPLv3 as I understand it, the author merely loses rights (to use the resulting binaries under locked down hardware). Since the *author* can still use the code under the GPLv2 and so can tivo, there is effectively no change until the license itself is changed, so GPLv2 with "or later" clauses don't matter.
GPLv3 seems dead on arrival. A number of FSF projects will use it, but I don't know of any FSF projects where the anti tivoization stuff would even have any effect, unless I don't understand the new restrictions properly.
Reason: Linus is a megalomaniac (Score:0, Insightful)
There are no legal reasons. 6 months after sending notices Linux can be GPL3, no problem.
His ideological reasons are that he wants to see Linux running on everything possible, including network amd multimedia appliances. So long as the distribution is wide, he doesn't care about the "sharing" aspect of it. After all, the work is all done by suckers anyway.
Re:Political Views (Score:1, Insightful)
Source is not truly "free" unless everyone is FREE to disregard your wishes completely
No. You are conflating the freedom of the software with that of the user.
To understand what the FSF means when they talk about software freedom, it helps to anthropomorphize the software. For example, am I less free if it is illegal for me to abduct and forcibly hold you, thus depriving you of your freedom? Arguably, yes. But it's probably for the best that I not have the freedom to abduct you.
The GPL tries to ensure the freedom of the software. The freedom of the code. Your freedom, while important, is secondary to that of the code. You will probably appreciate this if you live through the singularity. ;)
Re:Political Views (Score:2, Insightful)
Source is not truly "free" unless everyone is FREE to disregard your wishes completely.
No. This makes the people free, but not the source. There is a difference which is all too often swept under the rug.
Setting rules they must abide by, which the GPL does, makes it NOT free.
No. This makes the people not free, in order to ensure the source remains free. You're either deliberately misstating things, or you do not quite understand where RMS is coming from.
Regardless of what your opinions are of the GPL, misrepresenting its goals and effects does not make you sound more convincing to an informed audience. I too prefer v2 over v3 for low-level code, exactly because I think its restrictions for accompanying hardware are overly protective. But I understand where the license (and its tivo-restriction) is coming from, and I will never try to claim that the GPL restricts the code.
You are restricted by law not to kill your neighbours. Does that make you a prisoner, or does that grant freedom (security) to your neighbours?
Re:Political Views (Score:1, Insightful)
Which is nonsensical. Something placed in the public domain cannot be removed from it.
Yes it can. It's called a "derived work", and it encapsulates both the original item and any modifications applied to it.
"RMS's 'Free' means that people are forced [...] to give away source they write/modify themselves".
Yeah right. Exactly who forces you to give away the source that you write yourself? And in the case that you modify a third-party source: you are bound by the license restrictions of the original author.
If you think it is expressly OK to take code with complete disregard for the wishes of the person who wrote it, then by all means, stick with public domain. But at the very least, acknowledge the fact that other people might have other motives or goals in mind for the things they create, and respect their wishes.
Whining that other people don't understand your world will get you nowhere.
Hard to reconcile that with any definition of "free" that the world at large would recognize.
How come? Every human being is free. Yet, you are not free to take such a human being, make him mow your lawn and trim your hedges, and then discard him after use. How is that definition of "free" any different than what is applied to source code (or its authors)?
Re:Stallman hasn't gone to hell yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
How about "free as in free to use something else that has another license, reimplement the functionality yourself or pay someone to reimplement it"? It's not like you are forced to use GPLed software. If you want to just benefit from free code without giving anything back to the community then you are a leech and get treated as such.