the FSF wants the GPLv3 to be able to be LESS free then v2???

Posted Mar 21, 2007 23:43 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313)
In reply to: The Torvalds Transcript (InformationWeek) by drag
Parent article: The Torvalds Transcript (InformationWeek)

this is the first time I've heard anyone argue that the FSF wants to make the GPLv3 have the ability to be _less_ free then the GPLv2.

I don't believe this at all. I think that what the FSF wants is for people to think that they are compatable, convert code from the other licenses to GPL+options, and then combine it with other code to convert it to GPL without options

if people only look at things one step at a time this is going to be legal, but if people look at the history of the code it won't be.

for example, if GPLv3 vanilla is not compatable with the apache license, but GPLv3+option is compatable, then code released under apache licenses can still never be combined with GPLv3 vanilla code, even though GPLv3+option code could be combined with GPLv3 vanilla code (resulting in GPLv3 vanilla code)

to post comments

the FSF wants the GPLv3 to be able to be LESS free then v2???

Posted Mar 22, 2007 0:35 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (3 responses)

>if people only look at things one step at a time this is going to be legal, but if people look at the history of the code it won't be.

...this can't possibly be right.

No-one can remove restrictions from a license willy-nilly; the only time that's possible is if the copyright holder/original licensor explicitly granted that permission. Apache may be compatible with GPLv3+extra-clause, or GPLv3+extra-clause may be compatible with vanilla-GPLv3, but these cannot both be true at the same time (unless Apache is itself compatible with vanilla-GPLv3). Which of them is true depends on the wording of the extra clause -- if it says "you may remove this", then Apache ain't compatible with it; if it doesn't say that, then GPLv3 ain't compatible with it.

the FSF wants the GPLv3 to be able to be LESS free then v2???

Posted Mar 22, 2007 3:13 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

I was mistaken a bit. Mostly right, but somewhat wrong...

Well if you look at the license the amount of restrictions that you can add are _very_ limited.

It's a bit of a legal jedi mind trick realy.

You are allowed to add these specific restrictions under the GPLv3 license.

If you add them they then your software is has additional restrictions as allowed under the GPLv3 license.

However GPLv3 is still compatable. Because these GPLv3 allows these restrictions.

So if you take software from project "A" that has no additional allowed restrictions and combine it with project "B" that has additional allowed restrictions. Then you end up with software "AB" that is GPlv3 with additional allowed restrictions.

It's all still allowed and compatable.

Also keep in mind that the additional allowed restrictions is pretty limited to what you can add. It's mostly pretty non-important stuff. The only one that is scary is the additional patent one, but it's critical if your going to be compatable with Apache, Mozilla, et al.

the FSF wants the GPLv3 to be able to be LESS free then v2???

Posted Mar 22, 2007 3:17 UTC (Thu) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Also another thing to keep in mind is that the GPLv3 has a restriction that if you add additional terms (either permissions or restrictions) then it has to be in one central location in the code base.

So it's not like if your worried about this that you would end up having to grep through header files or whatever to find out what your dealing with.

the FSF wants the GPLv3 to be able to be LESS free then v2???

Posted Mar 25, 2007 0:28 UTC (Sun) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

So if you take software from project "A" that has no additional allowed restrictions and combine it with project "B" that has additional allowed restrictions. Then you end up with software "AB" that is GPlv3 with additional allowed restrictions.

And then nobody can take changes back from "B" to "A" without changing "A"'s license... or doing a detailed audit to find out where the changes originated, perhaps in "D" which is compatible with "A"

Somebody comes along and uses "A" stuff to create "C" with other added restrictions. "B" stuff can't be used with "C" now.

Can you spell "balkanization"?