The official launch will take place at noon Eastern Time in the FSF’s Boston office, finally delivering the first update to the GPL since 1991. The license has been updated via public draft process that began in December 2005 and has sparked no little controversy.
Although many of the FSF’s GNU free software projects are expected to immediately be licensed under GPLv3, it could be some time before the larger FOSS success stories make it to the new license, if ever.
It remains doubtful whether the Linux operating system kernel, arguably the most successful GPL project, will ever move to v3. During the draft process creator, and maintainer, Linus Torvalds, voiced his opposition to some v3 terms relating to patents and digital rights management. I was impressed in the sense that it was a hell of a lot better than the disasters that were the earlier drafts, he wrote of the last call draft on the Linux Kernel Mailing List earlier this month. I still think GPLv2 is simply the better license.
Torvalds noted that he might be more inclined toward GPLv3 if Sun Microsystems followed through on its hints that it might license OpenSolaris under the GPLv3. I’m pragmatic, and if we can avoid having two kernels with two different licenses and the friction that causes, I at least see the reason for GPLv3, he wrote.
Sun’s chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz, discussed the potential of Sun using GPLv3 as far back as January 2006, with one potential advantage being more efficiency and cross-pollination between Linux and OpenSolaris.
While the final draft of the GPLv3 due to be released today is unlikely to change much from the final call draft published in early June, it could still be some time before software vendors and developers complete the legal analysis required for any license change.
And there are no guarantees that Sun will use v3. Sun’s executive vice president of software, Rich Green, said in January that the company would give serious consideration to dual licensing OpenSolaris alongside the current Common Development and Distribution License when v3 was completed. However, a month later the community board for OpenSolaris rejected a potential move to v3 until at least six months after the license has been approved.
Customer relationship management software vendor SugarCRM has discussed GPLv3 as a potential license to solve the argument about whether its current Mozilla Public License +Attribution approach entitles it to call itself an open source vendor.
Database management systems vendor MySQL, meanwhile, changed its license from GPLv2 or later to GPLv2 only in January in order to avoid moving to the GPLv3 by default, although it did not rule out a move to the new license once its implications are properly understood.
A couple of companies hoping that it takes a while for open source projects to move to GPLv3 are Linspire and Xandros, who could potentially be getting a visit from the FSF’s legal experts following their patent collaboration deals with Microsoft.
GPLv3 includes terms designed to prevent a repeat of Microsoft patent covenant agreement with Novell, which exploited a loophole in the GPLv2 to enable it to offer patent protection only to Novell customers. The GPLv3 outlaws discriminatory licenses agreed after March 28, 2007, which would appear to include the deals announced by Xandros and Linspire earlier this month.
While that date enables Novell’s deal with Microsoft to remain in place, it was done to ensure that Microsoft’s patent protection will automatically pass to all GPLv3 users, according to the FSF. The Linux kernel might not move to v3, but other packages included in Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise distribution will, and as soon as Novell distributes them, Microsoft’s patent protection will extend to all GPLv3 users thanks to its distribution of vouchers for SLE support subscriptions.
That is the FSF’s theory anyway. Through its ongoing distribution of coupons, Microsoft will have procured the distribution of GPLv3-covered programs as soon as they are included in Novell SLES distributions, thereby extending patent defenses to all downstream recipients of that software by operation of paragraph 6, the FSF stated earlier this month.
It is the way that the GPLv3 deals with DRM that has caused the biggest rift with Torvalds and other Linux developers with the FSF attempting to prevent the Tivoization of free and open source software. The term relates to the use of open source code embedded within devices such as Tivo’s digital video recorders.
According to the terms of the GPLv2 Tivo was required to distribute any changes made to the software it used, which it did. But it also required the use of an authorized digital signature for the software to run on its machines, preventing the use of modified code.
The FSF saw that as an attempt to circumvent the spirit of the GPL and has moved to prevent it with GPLv3. The new version… reaffirms that distributing GPLed code in a technical context that prevents the user from reinstalling and using a modified version without additional permission, is just as much a violation of the license as adding a legal term with the same effect, said FSF general counsel, Eben Moglen, early on in the v3 draft process.
Meanwhile, Torvalds is of the opinion that as long as the code is available, the likes of Tivo can do what they like with their hardware. We do not, as software developers, have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, he stated last year.
The FSF compromised somewhat with the last call draft of v3, only requiring distributors to provide installation information when software is distributed on consumer products, rather than business equipment, acknowledging that there are certain situations where businesses would prefer their systems to be locked down, such as medical systems.
Another significant breakthrough with version 3 of the GPL is its compatibility with the Apache Software License. Having admitted defeat on that issue in March, the FSF announced earlier this month that discussions with the Apache Software Foundation revealed that concerns over indemnification issues were not such a major issue after all.
Developers have always been able to deploy Apache-licensed code such as the Apache web server and Geronimo application server alongside GPLv2-licensed code such as the Linux operating system or MySQL database.
Assuming those projects eventually move to the new GPLv3, developers will now have the ability to merge the two code bases without running foul of either license.
