GPL 3 won't split projects, Moglen says (News.com)

Posted Mar 26, 2005 13:10 UTC (Sat) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

This is an historic opportunity to enhance and defend software freedoms, which will make a great difference to the world our children inherit from us. There are very few in the modern networked world who can afford not to use or license free software.

The coming battle against software patents and copyright term extensions which go beyond economic logic is not yet won. This is a time to rally behind the leaders of the free world to support their efforts, in ensuring that those who legally use free software do so under terms which prevent these beneficiaries from discriminating against its development.

As far as the threat of forks and divisions are concerned, it is not possible to make ommelettes without cracking eggs. There will be projects whose leaders are persuaded to adopt the new license, and this will become increasingly popular as the threat against our entire community grows. The risk of having to expend some effort replacing what a few unpersuadable and obstructive copyright owners will not allow use of within these projects will be small in comparison. Project leaders who decide to prepare for a change to the new license might accept only dual-licensed code contributions during a changeover period.

There might also need to be some management of risk in situations where the original copyright holders are uncontactable or deceased. In this situation the risk of hostile parties being able to prove ownership of such copyrights, and having willingness to assert these in a damaging way against a project which upgrades to the new GPL3 is likely to be small. The risk of allowing relative weaknesses inherent in continuing with the GPL2 license to be exploited by our enemies might be greater.

Our commitment must be to replace seriously contested code incompatible with the license chosen for free software projects. This will remove economic incentive to those who would contest our code, other than to create legal nuisance to those they perceive as competition solely for the sake of doing so.

We will of course need to apply careful scrutiny to the new license when it emerges. But this review must be applied to the task of maximising the benefits to the free software world of applying this license in as many projects as possible. Let us go into this review with an absolute determination to keep the free software community working together on this, and to give no ground to the those gathering against us who would see private gain though prevention and curtailment of the free software world.

Posted Mar 26, 2005 14:06 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Perhaps the most significant piece of software this will affect is the
Linux kernel itself, because it has traditionally been licensed under GPL
v2 only, not the common "2 or later" wording, unless a contributor states
otherwise, AND Linus has always allowed contributors to maintain ownership
of their copyrights.

While that has had the practical effect of making it impossible for
anyone, like that guy who tried to buy a BSD licensed copy of the kernel,
to actually do so, due to the practical impossibility of tracking everyone
with copyright ownership in the kernel down and getting their permission,
even if Linus /were/ to lose his head and fall for such an offer, and I
expect most LWN readers will consider that a /good/ thing, it will /also/
mean it will be years before the kernel switches to the GPL v3, even if
they decide it's a /good/ thing and embark on a concerted campaign to do
so. Eliminating or rewriting any portion found to violate someone's
patent or copyright rights isn't that big a deal, but rewriting the entire
kernel to a new license will take some serious time, even if it /is/
decided that is the way to go, and it's rather likely that one or more
major contributors will continue to insist on the GPL v2, for whatever
reason.

I expect, therefore, that even if it's generally agreed that the kernel
should move to GPL v3, most submissions will have some form of "2 or 3"
language in them for perhaps half a decade, if it doesn't become more or
less permanent.

However, Moglen /has/ previously stated that v3 is being designed to be v2
compatible, tho it's difficult to see how, if v3 is going to add the oft
mentioned web code openness guarantees or any sort of patent defenses,
because that is additional restrictions normally not considered allowed by
the GPL v2. If he succeeds in somehow pulling it off, tho, dual licensing
GPL v2 and v3 shouldn't be necessary, unless the code contributor wants to
explicitly allow the v2 terms, because v3 will be compatible. Even a
simple explicit compatibility statement, the solution taken in some other
cases, won't work, if the additional patent defenses and web app source
requirements are indeed to be in v3 and hold any weight at all, because
that would be equivilent to v2 anyway, meaning why go to the trouble of v3
in the first place, unless it relaxes restrictions, which I find difficult
to envision.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what it looks like, that's for sure,
and equally interesting to see how the various projects currently using
the GPL v2 specifically react, as well whether those using v2 or later,
now change the wording to v3 or later for new code and where the code
owner allows.

Duncan

Posted Mar 26, 2005 17:06 UTC (Sat) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

> When the FSF finishes its work to produce the first discussion draft of GPL 3, there will be an extended comment period, which will be a chance for everybody to have their say. We will take as long in listening as people need to take.

The GNU FDL had a similar comment period, and all comments about (and before, and after) were ignored; indeed, the FSF even reneged on their promise to summarize the comments in a timely fashion (as in, before the next version of the FDL was published), let alone act on them. When people tried talking to RMS about the FDL after the comment period, he told us GNU licenses were none of our business.

Or in other words, I'll believe it when I see it.

Posted Mar 28, 2005 7:44 UTC (Mon) by pphaneuf (guest, #23480) [Link]

We will take as long in listening as people need to take.

Considering that Debian developers are a significant portion of the people involved, this means the GPL v3 should come out around 2009 or so. So no worries, people.