The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some individual files are licensable under v3, but not the kernel in general. And quite frankly, I don’t see that changing, wrote Torvalds in a posting to the Linux kernel mailing list.
The first draft of version 3 of the GNU GPL, which is used for an estimated 75% of all free and open source software, was released earlier this month. It is the first update to the free software license since 1991.
Considering the popularity of Linux, Torvalds’ rejection of GPL v3 is a blow to the plans of FSF founder and original GPL author, Richard Stallman, and FSF general counsel, Eben Moglen, but with the update not due to be finalized until January 2007 at the earliest, there is plenty of time for both changes of heart, and changes of wording.
Torvalds’s posting was critical of the draft license however. I think it’s insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example, he wrote. I wouldn’t do it. So I don’t think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don’t want to convert any of my code.
The draft version of the GPL v3 contains a clause requiring the inclusion of any encryption or authorization codes necessary to install and/or execute the source code of the work as well as any decryption codes necessary to access or unseal the work’s output.
That appears to be aimed at the encrypted use of free software within digital rights managements systems that prevents it being modified without the right private key, as opposed to using private keys to sign code, however.
The first draft of GPL v3 introduced new provisions guarding against software patent litigation and digital rights management software, which it described as fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the free software movement. Torvalds has a more laissez faire attitude to DRM, and has in the past vowed not to disallow any specific uses of Linux.
