It would if it could

Posted Apr 19, 2009 0:31 UTC (Sun) by gmaxwell (guest, #30048)
In reply to: It would if it could by JoeBuck
Parent article: SFLC: A Wake-Up Call for GPLv3 Migration

The permission would have to evaporate when your GPLv3+permission was combined with other GPLv3 works. Worse, if there existed multiple such permission clauses they quite likely wouldn't end up mutually compatible.

Are you sure the GPLv3 tivoization language is actually objectionable to you? The language in the final license has a very narrow scope, far narrower than in the earlier draft. You may be reading more expansive coverage than exists.

JoeBuck, "DRM" in GPLv3 generally refers to the 'effective measures' in section 3. I've never heard much complaint about these terms in the final license. Anti-tivoization is generally understood to be vested primarily in the Installation Information requirements of section 6.

The GPLv2 requirement "plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable" could even be argued to be more powerful anti-tivoization than the language in v3, though I suppose the FSF thought it wouldn't prevail in making that argument and instead adopted the unambiguous, if possibly less expansive, language in v3.

It would if it could

Posted Apr 19, 2009 1:55 UTC (Sun) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

I don't object to the Tivoization language, but since others do I'd rather see an exception in use than to see the free software world split into GPLv2-only and GPLv3-only camps.

It would if it could

Posted Apr 19, 2009 3:22 UTC (Sun) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

> The permission would have to evaporate when your GPLv3+permission was combined with other GPLv3 works.

Yes it would.

But the only situation were it would matter is if people are combining your GPLv3+TiVo-exeption with GPLv3 code and then trying to use it on a user-restritive device. Which would be illegal anyways.

Right? I mean it doesn't matter if the exception goes away or not because the people that would want to use your code on a user-restrictive device wouldn't be able to use pure GPLv3 code anyways. They'd still be able to use yours quite easily... but they would have to replace the pure-gplv3 code with something else.

> Worse, if there existed multiple such permission clauses they quite likely wouldn't end up mutually compatible.

One of the things that GPLv3 design goals is to allow exceptions for situations like these.

Because with the GPLv2 there was not any clean and easy way stated in the license saying what sort of exceptions you would or would not be able to take and still have it compatible with the GPLv2 code.

So what happens is that people then go and create their own oddball licenses and quite often do not have the resources necessary to do a very good job of it. So the idea is that you can replace the vast number of so-called OSS-approved licenses with GPLv3 + various exceptions.

It's one of the very positive aspects of the GPLv3, if I am understanding everything correctly.

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Basically, if I understand things... if you combine multiple programs with GPLv3+exceptions then the worst thing would happen is you'd end up with something that is the equivelent of pure Gplv3.