We congratulate the Free Software Foundation on the release of GPLv3 and offer our thanks to the many individuals in the open source community who participated in the process of drafting the license, commented Kaj Arno, VP of community relations at open source database firm, MySQL.
It was a statement typical of the reaction to the first new version of the GNU GPL since 1991, but while there were slaps on the backs all round, few vendors and projects have stepped up to license their software under the new license.
MySQL will continue to monitor the industry’s reaction and adoption of the new license, as we decide the best overall course for our community, our company, our users and our customers, added Arno.
MySQL changed its license from GPLv2 or later to GPLv2 only in January in order to avoid moving to the GPLv3 by default, and it appears that many vendors and projects are taking a wait and see approach to v3.
Code management firm Palamida is keeping track on the number of open source projects that have moved to the GPLv3, and was reporting that 94 had done so at the time of writing, with 5,415 having indicated an intent to adopt the license at some stage.
One vendor that had indicated its inclination towards using GPLv3 is Sun Microsystems, which has been openly discussing for some time the potential of using the license for its OpenSolaris operating system.
While the company welcomed the arrival of the new license, a statement indicated that it will take its time over a decision on GPLv3. It’s important to be clear: while there’s plenty of community discussion on the topic, there has been no change in the licensing of OpenSolaris, the company said in a statement.
We maintain that the world needs more than one type of free software license and we believe CDDL [Sun’s own Common Development and Distribution License, currently used for OpenSolaris] is the most polished and complete version of the Mozilla family of licenses, which is one reason we kept CDDL for Java EE and added GPLv2, as well.
While there is no change in the attitude from the core Linux developers that the kernel will remain under GPLv2, a full Linux distribution includes many more free and open source packages, and Red Hat stated that it expects to see v3 code added to Red Hat Enterprise Linux soon.
Red Hat believes our end user customers will benefit from several of the new provisions in GPLv3, including the patent license provisions, the company said in a statement, following the traditional congratulations.
Red Hat will continue to contribute to projects that migrate from GPLv2 or other licenses to GPLv3, and we will look to include GPLv3-licensed projects in our future distributions, it added.
Meanwhile, fellow Linux distributor Novell seemed more concerned with its on position following its controversial patent agreement with Microsoft. With the final release of GPLv3, we re-affirm Novell’s ability to include technologies licensed under GPLv2 or GPLv3 in SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, and other Novell offerings and to deliver these technologies to our customers, it stated after offering its own congratulations.
We note that the language which grandfathered the Novell-Microsoft agreement from a key patent provision remains in the final version, it added. The terms of the final version of GPLv3 will allow our continued collaboration with Microsoft.
It had been clear for some time that the GPLv3 would allow Novell’s agreement with Microsoft to stand despite the FSF’s dislike for patent deals that favor one group over another.
The FSF led the agreement stand on the grounds that Microsoft’s distribution of SUSE Linux Enterprise subscription vouchers would eventually mean patent protection for all users.
GPLv3 has outlawed a repeat of such discriminatory patent protection deals, however, and also takes a stand against digital rights management technologies using GPLv3 code. On a more positive note, it has enabled the integration of GPL and Apache Software License code for the first time.
