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Should Developers Switch to GPLv3?
Posted by
Cliff
on Sat Oct 07, 2006 11:23 AM
from the how-much-better-is-it-than-v2? dept.
from the how-much-better-is-it-than-v2? dept.
Isaac IANAL asks: "Victor Loh of ExtremeTech writes about the General Public License version 3's clause, which requires releasing digital signature keys — in other words, the software should be able to retain interoperability when modified. The article raises an objection, citing Linus Torvalds, that the so-called TiVoisation clause would inhibit open-source adoption in embedded devices among entities such as governments, health care providers, and finance firms. The issue has been discussed on Slashdot many times before. If you're a developer for a platform that needs to run signed code, could you use software under the GPLv3, or does the GPLv3 (at its current, unreleased state) truly inhibit your control as a developer over your device?"
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Should Developers Switch to GPLv3?
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Not yet (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not yet -- "GPLv3" Should Become "SGPL"? (Score:5, Interesting)
This shouldn't be named "GPLv3" when done and finalized. If they do that, there will be a big clusterfuck of confusion and uncertainty, coming from "GPL" softwares with crucially differing GPL versions -- v2 vs. v3 -- and this will harm business adoption of open-source software. Not completely clueful managers and officers get confused, they lose face, so they go elsewhere. (That is, stay with closed-source.)
"GPLv3" should be named "Stricter GPL -- SGPL" (or something like that), and "GPLv2" should be kept just "GPL" -- the familiar and famous thing that nobody has a problem with.
And anybody responding that we FSF hippies don't give a damn what the corporate world wants or needs... I understand the sentiment ("we do tools for ourselves and that's all"), but it would be good to have FOSS spread further, and in the biz domain any such ambiquity or other "perception problem" can be a bigger problem than anything related to quality or technology. Make the GPLv3 into what you want, but make it clearly separate from the current well-established GPL.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.revis.co.uk/)
If I sit down and from scratch write a kernel I can release it under the GPL v2, v3, v8 and seventeen differrent closed licenses with no problems at all other than going mad from reading all of the legal junk that's required to define each one.
It would only impact on me if I decided to use someone else's work as the basis for mine, or as part of mine, and then I would either have to comply with their license or do the work myself. Doesn't seem that hard to me.
No, don't be *that guy* (Score:4, Insightful)
GPLv3 is the worst of the series, IMO. Where it fails is in its insistence that if you want to be part of the community that you basically have to turn over every single thing to the whole community before you get the blessing to participate. Got a patent? Sorry, bud, check that at the door. Want to run specialized programs that require secrecy of code? Not on this platform, man. Want to mingle your closed code with our open widget? Give up all your source first.
It's not inviting at all except to anyone who has more to gain than lose from such a relationship. So what you get is a bunch of people who are actually leeches creating programs that no one else outside the community can even look at for fear of contamination.
If you want to share, then share. If you want to profit off of others and view everyone that looks at your code without contribution as suspicious, choose the new GPL. (The Artistic License for example, before it became GPL-compatible, was actually very cool and was able to gain a very large and loyal following for the Perl language. People contributed out of a sense of community, not out of coercion or because they were collecting a paycheck to do it.)
Re:No, don't be *that guy* (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.hansprestige.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 14, @04:25PM)
Wow, I don't see it that way at all. Yes, you have to turn over enough that the community can actually use the code you're giving back to them, and that seems perfectly reasonable to me. To give back modifications that are useless to the community because of patents or hardware DRM is to spit in the face of what the GPL is all about.
Re:No, don't be *that guy* (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://xenu.net/)
Keeping these points in mind, let's look at your examples:
If you are really interested in building a community, choose a license that
So if I decide to stop contributing to your GPL3 project, I have to surrender my copyright to the code I've contributed? That's news to me.
[GPL3 forces you] to turn over every single thing to the whole community before you get the blessing to participate.
This is not true. First, no one is forcing you to use this license. You make it out to sound like the FSF will shun you unless you use only this specific license, which is not true. Second, GPL3 does not force you to give up everything. You still hold the copyright to code your wrote, so you can also release it under other licenses. If you release a trademarked program, you can specify how you wish for the mark to be used.
Got a patent? Sorry, bud, check that at the door.
See freedoms 2 and 3.
Want to run specialized programs that require secrecy of code? Not on this platform, man. Want to mingle your closed code with our open widget? Give up all your source first.
You do not state the technical manner in which the "secrecy" and "mingling" is happening. Depending on this, these could very well be prohibited by the GPL2, completely invalidating them as fodder for your diatribe.
So what you get is a bunch of people who are actually leeches
This is pretty hilarious. How does the new GPL allow people to "leech" anything? No one is being forced to use this license. I'm guessing you're talking about those evil guys who will no doubt incorporate BSD code into their GPL3 programs. Yeah, those guys are totally violating the spirit of that license. Oh wait.
no one else outside the community can even look at for fear of contamination.
This is no different from looking at code that implements a software patent, or signing an NDA to look at proprietary code.
If you want to profit off of others and view everyone that looks at your code without contribution as suspicious, choose the new GPL.
If by "profit" you mean "allow everyone the freedom to use, study, modify, and distribute my code while preventing others from taking away these freedoms", then I agree with you. That's a pretty good profit derived from using this license.
Also, I fail to see how choosing the GPL3 would force me to view those who study my code as "suspicious".
In all, I fail to see how any of your points are really valid. You fail to actually define what you mean by key words in your argument. Of course, this allows you to shield yourself from having to debate any real issues, such as the meaning of "freedom", "rights", or "responsibilities". So perhaps this was intentional.
should they? (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Wednesday September 20 2006, @10:30AM)
I myself have a question which is not entirely off topic, which somone might be able to answer. Can I release a document which I've written under the GPL if it is not software, say an article or something? I would want people to be able to use my work in a fair way, and after I'm dead all this sillyness gets even more mental. Or does a licence for text documents like the GPL already exist seperately? and what would your obligation be unde it, if what you write is already plain text and doesn't have a source per se
what's wrong with v3? (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://arungoodboy.wordpress.com/ | Last Journal: Monday June 18, @06:41AM)
Isn't it expected that licenses will evolve as technmology changes, and as loopholes are exploited? If v3 isn't adopted, what's to prevent everyone from locking down their software through keys?
Please clarify if I've misunderstood something, I greatly respect RMS and really can't see what he's doing wrong here. As I see it, without v3, the GPL will just end up just being a license where people can use the community's hard work and avoid giving something back in return.
Code needs to be used... (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
If a company like Tivo makes changes so the kernel can support a particular situation better they have to release the code back to the community. That's the purpose of the GPL.
While there are downsides to a company like Tivo preventing any 'foreign' software from running on the system the fact is it prevents them from having to deal with thousands of variations and means they choose how and what to support. The alternative is they use something like BSD where they never have to return anything to the community.
GPLv3 will force companies to choose either GPLv2, or BSD style licensing unless they can develop the whole product in house. Obviously if they develop the whole thing in house the community at large is very unlikely to benefit at all.
The GPLv3 is not even done yet (Score:2)
Discussing the good and bad points of the current GPLv3 draft is valid and we should be doing that here. But to ask the question "should developers switch to it?" is immature and a little silly at this point in time. We could say "given the current draft of the GPLv3, I would not use it for reasons x,y, and z," but that is the extent of it I think.
At this moment in time, if the GPLv3 were actually released, I would probably still use the GPL v2 until I had time to really understand the v3 license, and the things it might mean to my project. Currently I think the GPLv2 has some definite weaknesses that the v3 is trying to address. For example, if I write a nice python library or module under the terms of the GPL (is that possible? I don't know offhand what license that would require), a person can just embed python in a closed-source C program, load my GPL module and use it as an integrated part of his closed-source program. The GPLv2 addresses dynamic linking from the pov of the compiler, the linker, but it doesn't take into account these other use cases that are now common. The spirit of the GPL certain forbids what I have described, unless the GPL applies to the program as well, and maybe the language does too, but it's ambiguous and would likely require a court challenge to decide. This is the type of problem the GPLv3 is trying to solve.
I hope that most GPLv2 people's objections to the v3 license will be addressed in some way. We shall see.
Stop spreading confusion! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.1407.org/~rms)
Spreading it is (either by ignorance or by malice) helping bad companies, like TiVo for instance.. Please read on the following to understand WHAT the GPL v3 draft says.
The draft version of the GPLv3 says that IF AND ONLY IF the software you want to run, needs some special digital signature, then and only then must the digital signatures acompany the source code.
So, what does all this blurb mean? Is Linus so obtuse he can't read english? No. So...?
I could understand it if he said that he felt he couldn't ignore the contributions of some hardware manufacturers, but what does he say? He says that GPLv3 "sucks" because it prevents legitimate businesses like those of TiVo. That if users don't like that hardware, they can use other hardware.
As usual, untrue pragmatism. The pragmatist doesn't idealize about perfect future conditions that may or may not happen. The true pragmatist solves the problem in a practical and definitive form: preventing the harm from happening.
Re:Stop spreading confusion! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.biglumber.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 18, @12:25PM)
No. You have misinterpreted.
Section 1201 of Title 17 (a.k.a. DMCA) defines circumvention as bypassing controls without authorization, and that authorization isn't something that comes from the law or the government -- it comes from the copyright holder. What the GPL is really doing here, is saying that the GPLed works' copyright holder grants authorization. If you withhold authorization (thereby triggering the malignancy of DMCA) then you have violated the license.
A lot of people seem to think that DMCA prohibits descrambling, but it really just prohibits descrambling without permission. If I hold the copyright on a CSS-protected movie and sell it to you, and I say "You may crack the CSS on this movie" then you legally may crack the CSS on that movie; you will not be violating Article 17 Section 1201. Now imagine if I had some little piece of a movie, such that lots of people wanted to make derived works of my movie fragment, and I licensed it under the condition "you, the licensee, may not forbid circumvention of CSS on your derived work." Then anyone who used my movie fragment, would have to allow CSS to be cracked on their movie. That's essentially what GPL3 is doing here.
It's not "locking horns" with the legal system; it's playing within the rules. And one of the rules is that the copyright holder may grant authorization to bypass.
Depends on your needs? (Score:1)
(http://mathiasdm.blogspot.com/)
I haven't released any projects yet (I've only been programming for a short time), but I don't intend to release them under the GPL.
Why? Because I think people should be able to link to my projects, without forcing their software to become GPL.
Developers rights (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
If you are considering the GPL, choose if you want v2 or v3.
Personally I think the GPLv3 creates more problems than it solves.
read these first, they're a good base (Score:4, Informative)
(http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 09 2006, @03:53PM)
For explanations of the changes in GPLv3, I highly recommend reading (or skimming) the transcripts of the GPLv3 conferences [fsfeurope.org]. Each transcript includes the subsequent Q&A session, and each begins with a list of links to the topics covered and the questions asked.
The freshest transcript is RMS in Bangalore in August [fsfeurope.org]. Here are the others:
Many also include links to audio and/or video recordings, and there's more general information about the timeline and how to participate on FSFE's GPLv3 page [fsfeurope.org].
Also, if you want to help raise the quality of discussion, a useful and really easy thing to do is to pass these links on to others.
No. (Score:1, Troll)
(http://sc.tri-bit.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday July 08, @02:36AM)
Whole story -1 flamebait. There is no GPLv3 yet. (Score:1, Offtopic)
(http://www.ajwm.net/amayer/)
The question is troll/flamebait.
Or to quote the Magic 8-Ball: "Ask again later" -- like in 6 months or so.
sheesh! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://xtifr.w.googlepages.com/home)
Yes!
> or does the GPLv3 (at its current, unreleased state) truly inhibit your control as a developer over your device?"
No! Any more questions?
(Ok, if you want to get picky: it doesn't inhibit your control over "your" device, but it may inhibit your ability to inhibit others. You know--the people who actually OWN "your" device! But that's the whole point!)
This whole "requires releasing digital keys" nonsense has to go! Whoever invented that meme should be shot. And I don't care how many of you like his fucking kernel!
Everyone's talking like this is going to have huge effects. The fact is that there is really, so far, only one company that would have been affected, and they won't be affected because the Linux kernel devs long ago decided to stick with v2. And now the devs want to justify that decision by pointing out all the supposed flaws with v3. I'm not impressed with their reasoning.
People talk about voting machines. The solution there is easy. The software needs to provide a signature of the results AND the software together. Then you can easily detect tampering while still providing all the freedom necessary to fix problems.
Going with GPLv2-only is the WORST possible solution, as far as I can tell. That will guarantee license-incompatibility in the future. Frankly, I see nothing in the GPLv3 draft that would justify the kind of headaches that going to GPLv2-only would cause. In fact, I see nothing in the GPLv3 worth bitching about. Yes, it's new, yes, there's some controversy, but my god, I was there when the original GPL was released, and this controversy ain't nothin' compared to the shitstorm of controversy back then! Well, Stallman turned out to be basically right about the GPL in the first place, and, by comparison, I see nothing but tiny, incremental improvements this time around.
The GPLv3 will be happening, and I, and probably tens of thousands of others, will be using it. Get used to it!
By the end of the next decade, I predict that people choosing GPLv2-only licenses will be being cursed as roundly and solidly as those who chose non-dual-licensed MPL or Artistic are today.
Code signing: WHO has the key? (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.biglumber.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday September 18, @12:25PM)
Governments, healthcare providers, and finance firms don't need to be able to make sure their software can be maintained? They want to be locked into a single source?
This is such a bullshit argument. Nothing about GPL3 prevents you from making your own machine tamper-proof. What they're really talking about, is distributing widgets to other people such that the other people cannot maintain or "tamper with" the widget. Governments, healthcare providers, and finance firms do not need that. Only media companies [think they] need that.
From submitter:
Before you finish that question, let's get something straight. When that platform is deployed, the end user will have the ability to install or choose what key(s) (perhaps even the end user's own key) the platform will accept, right? If so, then I really don't think you're going to have a problem with GPL3.
If the end user will not be able to sign code themselves, then fuck off. You sure as hell aren't talking about using DRM as a security feature, because users are the party who are ultimately responsible for their own security. Nobody cares if your project is GPL3 compatable or not, and nobody cares if your project uses Linux, because Linux is almost useless, like any other OS, if users cannot get maintenance whenever they want it. If your project can't get bugs fixed or features added (including features that you, the developer, think are bad ideas) then your project might as well run MS Windows. Maybe Torvalds doesn't care about users anymore, but Linux didn't get all the other developers working on it (including the ones who wrote those free drivers that you salivate over) by fucking the users over. Linux attracted people and became a successful project by not being user-hostile.
v2 will stay (Score:2)
(http://barrett.9hells.org/ | Last Journal: Friday October 06 2006, @09:25PM)
GPLv3 is one more option added, it will not erradicate GPLv2 (duh), so why all the fuss?
Well, I can tell one reason: to help developers be aware of these questions, and decide carefuly which license to use. The best one will depend on each situation. I understand Linus' concerns, he's pobrably right picking v2.
Just make it easy for everyone: (Score:2)
(http://allstarpowerup.com/)
There, was that so hard?
How I really feel (Score:2, Troll)
(http://aqpeag.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday April 21 2007, @05:39AM)
A lot of people have criticised Linus for the amount he has said about this...in my own mind, he hasn't gone nearly far enough. IMHO he needs to publically confront Stallman, and then move the kernel to an entirely new license that he himself is the author of.
The FSF and Stallman's radicalism are one of the main things that still alienate people from Linux. There very badly needs to be a parting of ways. Let the FSF and whoever else wants it continue developing the Hurd...The degree of rapidity with which Stallman would re-submerge back into total irrelevance after such an event would in itself be a powerful testament to his true level of significance.
To any of Stallman's supporters reading this who feel an urge to attempt to reprimand me as you have done in the past, let me simply say that I believe (and will continue to believe, your protests notwithstanding) that the only genuine reason why you are ideologically supportive of him is because you find it easier and more convenient to simply co-opt someone else's philosophy rather than using your own brains. Those of us who *aren't* afraid of engaging in genuine mental effort continue to see Stallman as we have always seen him...A fraud, and an individual far less enlightened than he has been able to lead more impressionable souls to believe.
Because of all of this, Linux does not need Stallman.
It does not need his false claims of credit for things that do not belong to him.
It does not need the division and conflict that he causes. (Which alienates newcomers primarily because the very issues Stallman creates conflict about are things about which they themselves do not care about at all)
It does not need the stigma of being associated with an uncompromising, radical, neo-Bolshevik extremist.
I have tried here over a period of years to continue to write what I believe to be the truth about this man, despite the best efforts of his followers to reprimand me, to shame me, and to do the same to others like me who have dared to express their opinions. You can lecture me, you can tell me how ignorant and foolish you think I am, but I know that I will continue to be vindicated. At nearly every speech and interview he gives, Stallman continues to dig his own grave...he continues to say things which portray him ever more as a radical, and ever more as someone who is genuinely deserving of the marginalisation that must inevitably come to him.
It is time for Richard Stallman to go.
Re:How I really feel (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.myspaceistakingover.com/)
First off, Linux is only a kernel. Did you somehow forget what else comes with a GNU/Linux distribution? The shells? The binary utilities? The network managers?
Last time I checked, Linux was best built with a GCC toolchain. That's right, a GNU C compiler is used to build Linux. Oh, and you should be using GNU make to configure it.
The FSF and its GNU project provide support utilities for virtually every Linux distro out there right now. Sadly, most of them, excepting Debian and its derivatives, have thrown away their acknoledgement of GNU and its importance in making Linux work. That is exactly how you talk -- as if GNU has done nothing for Linux.
What I hear from you is nothing more than fanboy's prattle. You honestly believe that Linux owes nothing to the FSF? NOTHING?
Without GNU, I would not have the following utilities:
Still feel that Linux doesn't need the GNU project or the FSF? Well, fine. Just don't call me an "uncompromising, radical, neo-Bolshevik extremist" anymore.
Entirely missing the point of the GPL (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/ | Last Journal: Saturday April 29 2006, @04:33PM)
"Your" device? Once you've sold it to a customer, it's ceased to be "your" device. If a customer buys a device that runs GPLed software, they have the freedom to replace that software as they see fit. That's entire purpose of the GPL: to grant end users freedom. Complaining that the GPLv3 inhibits a developer's control over their device is like complaining that GPLv2 inhibits a developer's control over their software. Congratulations on identifying the core purpose of the GPL.
Next week on Ask Slashdot: "Can you use the Bill of Rights in your dictatorship, or does the it truly inhibit your control as a dictator over your citizens?"
Question of authenticity (Score:2)
(http://www.red-belt.org/)
Would trying to release software under the GPL3 for the device controvine the GPL3?
The idea would be that voting machines, medical devices, and other items where the authenticity of the software is critical could indicate the authentcity of the software, while not preventing the software from running.
Would people argue that not being able to control the indicator with the users own software violated the GPL3?
What do you care about? (Score:2)
(http://www.silverglass.org/)
In my opinion, whether to stay with GPLv2 or move to GPLv3 boils down to the same thing as the question of whether to stay with a BSD license or move to the GPL: what things do you care about?
- Do you have a problem with a company taking your code, adding their patented methods to it, and using patent enforcement to block anybody from modifying and redistributing the patent-containing version, while they distribute it and make money off it?
- Do you care whether a hardware manufacturer takes your code, uses it in the firmware of their device, then prevents anyone else from modifying the firmware and using it in the device (think the Linksys Linux-based routers and the enhanced firmware for them)?
- Are you making a Web-delivered application, including "get the source code" functionality and want to prevent anyone from removing that functionality while still keeping your program under the GPL?
- Do you want to add any of the restrictions the GPLv3 talks about, without making your program non-GPL?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, then you probably want to look at the GPLv3 because it may suit your needs better than GPLv2. If you answered "no" to all of them, GPLv2 will probably suit you just fine.In the end it boils down to a question of what exactly you want to do with your program, and what things you want to allow or prevent. Once you know that, you look for the license that most closely matches those.
Note that this applies only to code you wrote yourself, when dealing with modifications to code somebody else wrote there's always the added constraint of what license terms they applied to their code. If they put it under GPLv3, you don't have a choice but to put your modified version under GPLv3 (or any later version, if they included that language). Similarly if they put their code under GPLv2 without the "or any later version" language.
The question is FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://bcgreen.com/~samuel | Last Journal: Friday April 30 2004, @02:42PM)
It simply requires that you provide the user with the ability to use/create a functional key which provides identical functionality.
That way you can't end up with a situation where, say, Microsoft, uses their market clout to make hardware manufacturers release 'secure' boxes which only boot from Microsoft keys, and then they release a Linux kernel signed by Microsoft.... Now you have the source code to the Microsoft Linux kernel, but no 'comodity' box that will boot your recompiled kernel because they all require Microsoft's key.
Now, Microsoft (and Linus) can keep their private key private -- they just have to provide you with a key (any key) that will boot your box ... and They just can't punish you for using your own kernel (as long as it provides identical functionality).
FSF should stop trying to convince Linus (Score:2)
Another trick would be to put glibc under an LGPLv3 that has the same restriction on software signing systems.
Switch lobbying efforts to trying to get Samba to use GPLv3.
The endgame of the Trusted Computing fight is that within a few years an operating system that isn't TCG-signed will not be able to fully access the Internet, with various games, web sites, and DRM systems refusing access to "untrusted" operating systems. Linux will exist, but only the large corporations will be able to build it.
Melissa
The TiVo complainants are missing the point .... (Score:2)
(http://www.dcc.vu/)
The restrictiveness of the TiVo situation is caused by the closed hardware, not the GPL software. The software is doing its job under the GPL.
The intent of the GPL (even RMS would have to admin) was to ensure freedom to tinker
- on general purpose computers
, not to patch an embedded system.The "right to tinker" may be central to FSF philosophy, but it's the least important of the GPL rights to the general public. Strange as it may seem, 99.9% of the world doesn't write code. And further, that right is still available
The TiVo software is fulfilling the primary GPL right of making dervative improvements freely available - anyone who wants to can take a cool new codec that TiVo wrote and port it into mplayer. TiVo has made a permanent contribution to the pool of freely available source code.
Objective evidence that RMS is out of touch .... (Score:2)
(http://www.dcc.vu/)
Don't get me wrong, I'm an open source zealot myself, and I have huge respect for what RMS has done to put open software on the map, and having someone on the extreme acts as a foil for moderates, but the GPL is not a soapbox. Embrace pragmatism!
Wearing my business hat as CTO of a USA-based internet startup, where naturally we use a ton of open source stuff, my concern is that RMS's extremism is handing a gift to the anti-open-source community, especially to Microsoft in their battle with Linux.
I deal with venture capitalists and other financial types: their lawyers don't understand open source licensing, and lawyers always fear what they don't understand. Even now, their standard going in position in deal negotiations is "tell us about all the open source your company uses, what the licenses are, and what it would cost to replace it with closed source". The normal GPL gives a business less commercial protection than a proprietary license which, for example, typically inclues indemnification against patent lawsuits.
We do use GPL'ed stuff, but as a business person I prefer almost any other major open source license (Apache, BSD, Artistic, etc.)
If RMS has his way, there is going to be massive confusion between GPLv2 (just liveable with, if you're careful) and GPLv3 (totally unsuitable for business use) and the FUD is going to be used against every open source project out there. He's going to force me off of Linux and onto a closed OS. How does that help open source?
RMS needs to step up to his natural leadership position as elder statesman of the open source movement: this is a political role, which means embracing compromise.
He also needs to get over the Linux / HURD thing and move on
Use whatever the dominating license is (Score:1, Redundant)
(http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/)
And whatever you do, don't create your own license.
Whose device? (Score:2)
(http://kasperd.net/~kasperd/ | Last Journal: Thursday July 08 2004, @10:18AM)
Once GPLv3 is officially finished, I am going to read it and decide if I think FSF kept its word and made the new license in the same spirit as the old one. And once I have decided, I am going to release a statement on my homepage saying either, that anything I ever released under GPLv2 can be used under GPLv3 as well, or I will (highly unlikely) state that I don't consider GPLv3 to be a successor to GPLv2, and code I have released under GPLv2 cannot be used under the terms of GPLv3.
At first I'll probably allow new code I write to be used under GPLv2 and GPLv3 until I decide which one I like better (which will also depend on what other people do).
Re:FUCK the GPL (Score:2)
A much better tactic would be to sue the FSF over something they did wrong and since they probably don't have much in the way capital to actually be awarded the foudation itself. A take over. You can then null and void any limitations to GPL code you don't like for everyone. A clause in the GPL gives the FSF power to relicence code however they want; and that kind of power is an asset. You could make all code public domain if you wanted or sell specific projects code to closed source companies for a profit. I'm surprised microsoft and the old unix companies havn't tried this. The question is what to sue over... but lawyers are pretty crafty.
Re:FUCK the GPL (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Friday September 26 2003, @02:43PM)
The second argument doesn't work, in that there *is* no such "internal use" exception. (I believe the FSF does not consider internal use to be distribution, but that doesn't give you a way out.)
The problem with any "make an ABI compatible stub" approach is that you need that stub to not be a derivative work of the library! You might be able to pull that off, but at minimum it would probably require a clean room reverse engineering approach.
One legitimate effect of this is that the GPL-linking business has no teeth for a library with a standard ABI; assuming there isn't any header produced non ABI code, you could link against such a library without your program being a derivative work. (but IANAL; I might be wrong.) As such, there's no reason (barring it, itself, being derivative of GPL) for such a library to be GPL in the first place.