From the Editors: Happy birthday, GPL v3
By SD Times News Team
July 15, 2008 —
(Page 1 of 2)
The GNU General Public License version 3 is one year old and already walking, albeit a little wobbly compared with its very successful sibling, the 17-year-old GPL v2.
V3 marked its first birthday on June 29. Already more than 3,000 free and open-source projects based on the new license have been commenced, according to a list posted on Black Duck Software’s Web site. In fact, if you refresh that page, you may see a few more pop up.
However, despite the brisk pace, v2 remains the favorite, with about 69% of projects remaining based on the earlier version authored by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The variations of v3 barely top a 2% share of the top 20 licenses. Still, v3 is off to a great start. We’re impressed, to be honest, with how well v3 has done, despite warnings from naysayers during development.
The FSF pushed v3 as a reaction to moves by software companies to thwart free use of software—not free as in unpaid for, but free as in how consumers can use what they have paid for. As some mistakenly believe, v3 does not cancel digital restrictions management (DRM) provisions that some software companies have imposed, but it does make them less punitive. Under v3, if someone develops tools to thwart DRM features, they can’t be thrown in jail.
V3 also aims to curb discriminatory patent infringement claims. When Microsoft partnered with Novell in 2006, Microsoft said it wouldn’t sue Novell users for alleged violations of Microsoft patents. But that indemnification doesn’t apply to other Linux users. V3 prevents a repeat of that kind of move.
The new license also closes a big loophole with its AGPL license. The “A” stands for Affero and refers to a provision that requires license holders who use the software-as-a-service model also to share their source code with users.
Overall, v3 clears up some of the thorny legalese in v2 that needlessly complicated life for software users.
Software companies can’t be blamed for taking a wait-and-see attitude. Some are staying with v2 because it still constitutes the bulk of the market. While supportive of the FSF’s free software campaign, we take exception to their complaint that companies sticking with v2 want to “imprison their users.”
Related Search Term(s): GNU, open source, Eclipse, Nokia, Symbian
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