Comments on GPL v3 Draft 4

Well it's good to see that the third version of the GNU General Public Licence (GPL) has been progressing at a reasonable rate. The latest discussion draft was announced on 31 May, and all indications are that this will be the final draft.

In order to read the draft link over to http://gplv3.fsf.org/ and be sure to read the rationale and comments made.

Richard Stallman has also published his own comments on why to upgrade to the new version. Definitely worth a read as well.

I think Richard's comments cover most of the views I personally have on the process and reasoning and, if you are interested, you can read my take on the process in my post titled Principles of Free Software.

Effects on the Novell Microsoft Deal

Related to the draft, there was a comment I read about the effect it will have on the Novell/Microsoft agreement which illustrates the lack of understanding by some people as to the effects of the new licence.

To quote Stephan Beal...

Microsoft doesn't have to do anything as long as Novell does not ship software which uses the GPL3. The Linux kernel will likely not use the GPL3, if only because changing the license on software requires agreement from all copyright holders, which is not feasible in the case of code with several thousand copyright holders. (For example, the header file include/asm-powerpc-ps3.h in the Linux 2.6.20 kernel tree is copyrighted by Sony.)

My response follows...

The problem for Novell does not merely revolve around the Linux Kernel going GPLv3, which will be unlikely to happen immediately. The problem lies in all the GNU utilities and other software which are specifically licenced as "GPLv2 or Later". The recipient of the software has the choice as to which licence (v2 or v3) to accept.

In order for Novell (and Microsoft) to avoid the consequences of GPLv3, it will be necessary for them to strip out and replace all the "GPLv2 or Later" licenced material, not an easy task but not impossible either.

I shudder to think what the resulting system would be like without all the GNU utilities, Kernel Modules and other software which are licenced as "or Later" removed.