Samba Adopts GPLv3 For Future Releases

Jeremy Allison - Sam writes with news that the Samba Team has decided to adopt the GPLv3 and LGPLv3 licenses for all future releases of Samba. Follow the link for a FAQ addressed to Samba developers and contributors. "To allow people to distinguish which Samba version is released with the new GPLv3 license, we are updating our next version release number. The next planned version release was to be 3.0.26, this will now be renumbered so the GPLv3 version release will be 3.2.0. To be clear, all versions of Samba numbered 3.2 and later will be under the GPLv3, all versions of Samba numbered 3.0.x and before remain under the GPLv2."

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[iamdrscience (541136)]

Indeed. A lot of projects are going to be switching to GPLv3 from GPLv2 in the coming weeks and months, are we going to get an article for each one of these projects that change their status? Why is this news?

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[AuMatar (183847)]

For the major ones, yes. Especially early adopters. And Samba is definitely a major FOSS project, their switching is a win for the GPL3.

More like, who re-packages it.

[khasim (1285)]

Yep, Samba is a major project.

But more to the point, LOTS of vendors re-package Samba and sell it as NAS's and such.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

We could soon see NAS, etc. vendors forking Samba 3.0.x so they don't have to deal with GPLv3 ... then the whole fun mess of was this patch copied from 3.2+ into the fork or does it just happen to look the same since the fix is only sensibly done in a limited number of ways.

Re:

[Nimey (114278)]

Some NASes still come with Samba 2.x, like the Snap 210 I got last year.

Re:More like, who re-packages it.

[Jeremy Allison - Sam (8157)]

I doubt that. Why would NAS vendors need to fork ? It's not like dealing with GPLv3 is harder than dealing with GPLv2. I expect our vendors to just roll along with us, as will and vendor that doesn't have "discriminatory" patent agreements.
Jeremy.

Are you aware of any that do?

[khasim (1285)]

I expect our vendors to just roll along with us, as will and vendor that doesn't have "discriminatory" patent agreements.

I'm not trying to be snippish or anything. But are there any vendors that you know of that do have such?

Particularly with the new Samba on the horizon.

Re:More like, who re-packages it.

[drix (4602)]

G'luck with that, is all I have to say. Having once waded into the Samba codebase trying to ferret out a bug, I can't see them getting very far unless they manage to snipe one of the core developers. Samba is giant and the amount of resources needed to backport every bugfix (to say nothing of feature additions) and be at all subtle about it has got to exceed just accommodating the new license. And don't forget Samba 4 is on the way, so you lose ADS too if you want to fork 3. No, I think they'll either put up or shut up.

Re:More like, who re-packages it.

[MightyMartian (840721)]

And that's fine. They can support the full weight of patches and development for the pre-GPL3 code bases. They won't have the open source community lending them a hand with things like Samba and the Linux kernel. Can you see the vendors building NASs with Samba getting together to pool their resources to keep GPL2 versions up and running? Either these vendors will give up the lock-in and play nice, or their products will increasingly become dated and substandard.

Re:More like, who re-packages it.

[alexgieg (948359)]

So what? Does switching to GPLv3 change anything about [LOTS of vendors re-packaging Samba and selling it as NAS's and such]? There's nothing those vendors do with Samba that will have to change because of the new restrictions under GPLv3. So who cares?

There is one thing: if a NAS manufacturer has put DRM on the device blocking its owner from changing the underlying software, that manufacturer either won't use the GLPv3 Samba, or to be allowed to use it he will have to at least disclose in full the instructions needed for one to change the underlying software (or more probably, remove the DRM "feature" entirely).

So, yes, this is major news for everyone developing/manufacturing/deploying/using/etc. anything Samba-related.

Re:More like, who re-packages it.

[frogstar_robot (926792)]

Technically speaking, wouldn't this manufacturer only have to make it possible to run modified Sambas and other modified GPLv3 bits they might of used? Say the rest of the userland was some modified BSD code, that could still stay shut?

In practice, I imagine such DRM would be done by signing an entire firmware image. Future practitioners of such DRM would just have to isolate the bits that really need to be sooper-sekrit if they want to use GPLv3 code.

Re:

[19thNervousBreakdown (768619)]

I highly doubt it. I don't know the legalese well enough (or law) to say for sure, but one of the main purposes of the GPL3 is to prevent exactly that.

Now, they could modify the kernel to implement the DRM, and release an unmodified Samba >=3.2. Since you could implement pretty much any DRM system in the kernel (and it's probably the best way to do it, short of hardware measures), Samba doing this stops very little. But it is cool, I think. Even though we may not be able to circumvent the DRM, we're f

Re:More like, who re-packages it.

[alexgieg (948359)]

Now, they could modify the kernel to implement the DRM, and release an unmodified Samba >=3.2. Since you could implement pretty much any DRM system in the kernel (and it's probably the best way to do it, short of hardware measures), Samba doing this stops very little.

No, no, no! Quite the opposite in fact! If they provide a DRM'ed device with GLPv3 Samba installed, the GLPv3 license says that they MUST provide you all information you need to be able to replace that pre-packaged Samba with any GPLv3 Samba you, or anyone else, provide.

So, it doesn't matter whether the DRM scheme is on the kernel, on the firmware, or wherever. If it's blocking you, the end-user, from updating, upgrading, recompiling, downgrading, replacing etc. etc. etc. a piece of GPLv3 software, they are in violation of the license and must either: a) stop distributing those pieces of GPLv3 software; or b) comply with the license by providing you, the end user, all the required codes to mess with it as you see fit; or c) deal with the problem in the court when they're sued, and with the fact they're are going to lose. Furthermore, if they're wise and follow "b", there's nothing stopping you, the end user, from installing anything where Samba formerly was, what renders any DRM over the remaining pieces of software pretty much useless.

So, Samba doing this doesn't stop it very little. Samba doing this stops it entirely. Once you add holes in your DRM to accommodate the pieces of GPLv3 software you must add to it, there's in fact no DRM left in the device.

Re:

[19thNervousBreakdown (768619)]

They don't have to put any kind of DRM into Samba to still make the Samba server subject to DRM. Put it in the kernel, and if the kernel's key doesn't match the one in the firmware, and the file "shouldn't" be opened, the kernel denies access to the file. Samba is completely unmodified, they don't have to give out the keys because the kernel is under GPL2, and their modified kernel is the only one that can read the FS because it's encrypted. You aren't being blocked from using Samba in any way.

Re:

[alexgieg (948359)]

(. . .) you would still be able to modify the copy of Samba and run it on the device (which is all the GPLv3 requires). It's just that, since you wouldn't be able to access the hypothetical DRM'd thing because something outside of Samba was disallowing it, modifying Samba wouldn't help you get around that limitation.

It depends. Imagine a NAS which has features A and B, both accessible by the supplier-provided Samba. Per the GPLv3, the supplier must allow me to change this Samba to anything I wish. So, suppo

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[goarilla (908067)]

samba is a biggy and pretty vital to Novel and their deal since most interoperatiblity between windows machines
and *Nix machines is provided through this service, so iirc Novel will have to fork samba

Re:

[mrbluze (1034940)]

Indeed. A lot of projects are going to be switching to GPLv3 from GPLv2 in the coming weeks and months, are we going to get an article for each one of these projects that change their status? Why is this news?

Could it be that Samba is a major interoperability tool for use with Windows, and as such it has an implact on interoperability with possibly non-GPLv3 distributions eg: Suse and other distros that have made deals with Microsoft.

In other words, if you want your Linux to work well with Windows (which in a big way means Samba), go for a GPLv3 version.

Re:

[The Cisco Kid (31490)]

Becuase MS will continue to modify their implementation of their undocumented file sharing protocols, and the old version of Samba will certainly no longer operate with newer version of MS platforms. The newer (GPL3) versions of Samba will get the ongoing updates and changes to continue to interoperate.

Re:

[Tuoqui (1091447)]

The GPLv2 was a much simpler license, a word count alone should confirm that. This one was written by lawyers, and it is long and very verbose.

Sorta like Microsoft's EULA? Which they say the GPLv3 doesnt apply to them [slashdot.org]

So, let me summerize

[mergy (42601)]

the

*.2.* indicates GPLv3
*.0.* indicates GPLv2

So, to easily remember this kids 2 equals 3 and 0 equals 2.

All set now?

smbfs?

[man_of_mr_e (217855)]

So doesn't this mean that smbfs is now dead? Or stuck at 3.0.x? Since the Linux kernel will not be going GPLv3, from my understanding of what Linus has said.

Re:smbfs?

[Jeremy Allison - Sam (8157)]

smbfs has been dead for a while. The replacement is CIFSFS. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your point of view :-) this isn't a Samba project, it's developed by Steve French of IBM, and I think it's under GPLv2 or later.
Jeremy.

Re:

[skrolle2 (844387)]

Not necessarily, if smbfs needs code from the Samba project, its authors can of course give it to smbfs under GPLv2, or whatever other license they choose.

Not dead yet.

[pavon (30274)]

Some (all?) of the samba libraries are also released under the LGPL, which can be linked against software using whatever license you want. I'm not certain, but I think that this includes all of the libraries used by smbfs.

The FAQ in the article is actually in error - you do not need to license your code as "GPLv2 or latter" to link against LGPLv3, just to link against GPLv3.

Re:Not dead yet.

[Jeremy Allison - Sam (8157)]

No it isn't in error. "GPLv2-only" licenses are incompatible with both GPLv3 and LGPLv3, as they add additional conditions which are incompatible with GPLv2. It isn't the LGPLv3 code that is the problem, it's the "GPLv2 only". Thus the advice to relicense to "GPLv2 or later". See the FSF comments on this.
Jeremy.

Re:Not dead yet.

[node 3 (115640)]

If there's one thing the FSF has done successfully, it's teach FLOSS developers to be highly skeptical of any large, monolithic entity with power over your programs and your code.

That's not what they've taught at all. They've taught that large monolithic organizations are just fine and dandy, so long as they provide you with the ability to do what you want with the products they sell you.

The FSF is, due to it's GNU associations [aside: what does this even mean?], very much a large, monolithic entity in the *nix world. If I was going to say "I trust you with my code in perpetuity" I'd probably go with any other FLOSS license besides the GPL.

Which organization do you think is going to work to protect the freedom of software users more than the FSF?

Note that there's no reason the original copyright holder can't re-release code that's GPLv2-only under GPLv3 or later revisions. The original owner didn't gain access to it by the GPL. He gained access to it by copyright.

See my response to the AC below.

The real question is, what, exactly, do people think is going to happen? MS is going to buy the FSF and create a GPLv4 which is just an MS license? Do they think that somehow this means that the FSF will be able to steal your code away from you? None of these things are remotely likely, or in the case of the second, even reasonably possible.

The biggest concern is the FSF really screwing up, inadvertently, a new license. *That's* the only reasonable concern. The FSF has shown great care in the past, and present, in drafting their licenses, and it seems highly reasonable to assume they'll do so in the future. Of course, if it were as easy as you (and others) seem to think to relicense a project from GPLv2 to GPLv3 (or any other earlier-later transition), then there really wouldn't be an issue. But it *is* difficult, unless you are the sole programmer for a project, and you don't die or pass on stewardship of the project to someone else without granting them full copyright of your code. And if you do accept patches or other collaboration, then you'll have to be sure to consolidate fully copyrights from everyone who contributes code (which is the exact thing you are arguing *against* people doing).

On the other hand, just adding "or later" (not adding, actually, just not removing), you avoid all those problems. All those real problems which actually exist. You do leave yourself vulnerable to potential problems, primarily the FSF botching a subsequent license. But if your code is GPLvX or later, if GPLvX+1 is botched, you can still just use GPLvX. Of course, you can't stop others from switching over to a newer license, but your code will remain under the "GPLvX or later" license, if that's what you wish. And even if GPLvX+1 (or later) is botched, it's probably not botched all that much.

So the risk is small, the potential problems are small and fairly limited, and the potential for avoiding non-small, non-low risk problems is great. How is this foolish again?

Re:

[ScytheBlade1 (772156)]

Holy redundant posts in seconds, batman.

Oh whew!

[mattgreen (701203)]

What a relief! These past few nights I have been unable to sleep as I pondered which versions of what software should adopt the new GPL (which is really sweet BTW you should check it out, it has awesome graphics). I can rest a little easier now knowing that they are moving to GPLv3.

After all, its the morally correct thing to do.

Excellent work

[raahul_da_man (469058)]

There was a lot of doomsaying as to how the GPL V 3 would never be adopted, most unexpectedly by Linus, and also by the normal suspects in spreading FUD. It is good to see that
the FSF and Stallman have finally addressed patent issues and prevented tivoization. As a major project like Samba has adopted this, many other projects will probably also follow suit. It becomes harder and harder to stay GPL v 2 if the entire body of software is V3. Linus may have stated that the kernel won't have V3, but increasingly that will lead to the kernel being unable to incorporate the latest patches from others.

GPL3 not practical for Linux kernel

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

The limitation is not because Linus is some asshole, but a practical realisation that GPL3 cannot be retro-fitted to existing kernel code.

Only the owner of the code is allowed to assign the license and people made submissions to Linux under the GPL2-flavored license. Linus has no authority to release all the Linux code under a new license since he only owns a small percentage of the code. There have been thousands of people submitting to Linus under the GPL2-flavored license and it is impractical, if not impossible, to track those submittors down and secure a GPL3 agreement from them.

Sure, Linux could adopt the SMB strategy of committing to make future release of Linux GPL3 (eg, say Linux 3.0). Then all submissions into that new version would have to be GPL3. Practically though, many of the big players in Linux might prefer GPL2 over GPL3 and that could force a fork.

Re:GPL3 not practical for Linux kernel

[bucky0 (229117)]

Bzzt. Wrong. Linus Torvaldis explains this pretty often [lkml.org] The "or later" clause is optional, and was never in the License that the linux kernel was released under.

Corporate GPL contributions disappearing in 3-2-1

[lushmore (41101)]

Here's how at GPLv3 is playing at my Fortune 50 company, who makes contributions to lots of OSS projects.

1. We make tivoized device.
2. OSS project which we use for the device switches to GPLv3.
3. We start looking at other alternatives, decide project is no longer useful to us.
4. We stop contributing to the project.

I anticipate there will be a lot of corporate contributors quietly exiting their Samba involvement in the near future. A few of these exits will see some pub when a major developer switches employers as a result, but most corporate OSS contributions will disappear with a whimper. GPLv3 will return OSS to the original egalitarian ideals, but it's probably going to reverse all the corporate uptake that has happened in the last few years. If you're about to say that this only applies to tivoized devices, you should take a look at the market and see that the majority of corporate uptake of OSS has been in internet-connected appliances.

Re:Corporate GPL contributions disappearing in 3-2

[Frenchy_2001 (659163)]

If you're about to say that this only applies to tivoized devices, you should take a look at the market and see that the majority of corporate uptake of OSS has been in internet-connected appliances.
Internet connected does not mean "tivoized".
For example, Linksys used the Linux kernel on its routers, got forced to publish the source and now you have 3rd party firmware for those devices. So, they did participate and they did use Linux. This deal would still be valid under GPLv3. The only thing you are not al

And now for the important part.

[skrolle2 (844387)]

When will 3.2 be released, and when will Novell include it in SUSE?

Re:And now for the important part.

[Jeremy Allison - Sam (8157)]

"When it's done" - sorry, don't know when that'll be. You'll have to ask Novell if they'll include it in SuSE, but I don't see why not.
Jeremy.

Re:Why not v3.3.x?

[Jeremy Allison - Sam (8157)]

'Cos odd numbered releases mean "development" releases. People have been trained by the Linux kernel to think that. It's like odd numbered Star Trek movies, everyone knows they suck :-).
Jeremy.

Re:

[jon787 (512497)]

My guess is that they reserve odd minor version numbers for development branches. 3.0 and 3.2 are stable versions.

Re:

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

I presume Samba gives special meaning to even vs. odd sub-revisions and they don't want to mess that up.

Re:Why not v3.3.x?

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

Well, this message's (actual) parent is gonna get modded Redundant because I was a bit slow in composing my reply. (My excuse: if I keep my session open too long, every clicked link pegs my CPU for what feels like half a minute, new tabs longer.)

It would be nice if slashcode's Preview would inform a poster about other replies that were made to the parent posting since the new posting was started or last previewed. That might cut down on the number of redundant follow-ups where some posters compose slower than others and don't think to click the parent's message number to reopen it in a new tab to check for other replies first.

Dev version isn't GPL3?

[lullabud (679893)]

So, by this logic the Dev version, 3.1, would be GPLv2.

They really should've made the dev version 3.3 and the stable 3.4. It only makes sense.

Using 3.2 for a GPL3 release is the same kind of shit that Sun would pull to confuse us about which version of JACRONYM we are using, or which version of Solaris/Sun OS we're running.

Re:GPL 3 and Closed Source Addons/Extensions

[Jeremy Allison - Sam (8157)]

Nothing. That code doesn't link to Samba and so the license change has no effect. Apple are perfectly free to keep shipping Samba, as are all other vendors who obey the GPLv3.
Jeremy.

Re:

[ZachPruckowski (918562)]

See, but that doesn't break any of the Freedoms that FSF espouses. I can still update, modify, recompile, or remove whichever version of Samba Apple ships. I could even write my own SMB-compatibility app. In the worst case scenario, I can't use that preference pane if I "break" Samba. But that's my problem, not Apple's.

Apple is actually really modular with its code. You can replace a lot of components, and as long as they're compatible, there's no issue. I've upgraded several of the installed OSS pro

Re:Free software my ass

[WaXHeLL (452463)]

Write code you love and let it go free. If someone else makes money from it, BFD. "RMS" can go shove it.

That's called the BSD license.
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php [opensource.org]

Reason for BSD

[brunes69 (86786)]

The problem is legally there is no such thing as a "public domain" work created by an individual. If you created it, it is copyright automatically, period. No one can use it without your permission (AKA a license). The BSD license is basically a license that says "do whatever you want with this code, and I take no legal responsibility for it's use". That is pretty much as "public domain" as a license can be. And it's 3 simple letters so it's simple to apply :P

"Public domain" only really applies to works with expired copyright, or works created by public institutions like the U.S. Government.

Re:

[the not-troll (1124355)]

Write code you love and let it go free. If someone else makes money from it, BFD. "RMS" can go shove it.

How eloquently you trash the GPL when you obviously never read it. "RMS" and we who understand what he wants have absolutely no problems with people making money of software. What we have a problem with is getting software and then being at the mercy of its creator: If we get software, we want to be able to improve it, should the need arise; otherwise, if the company who distributed the non-free software

Re:In other news...

[Jeremy Allison - Sam (8157)]

That's funny, according to this page :

http://freshmeat.net/stats/ [freshmeat.net]

fully 65.74% are under the GPL with an additional 6.53% under the LGPL. If anyone is cutting themselves off from the mainstream it would be BSD and other types of license, it seems :-).

Jeremy.

Re:In other news...

[QuantumG (50515)]

Absolutely. I've tried to explain this before, but it always gets muddled up. Ideally I'd like to release my code with the least restrictions possible, because I want the users of my software to be free, but in practice if I don't put some copyleft like restrictions on my code then it will end up that some of the users of my software will not be free. If my goal is to maximize the freedom of the users of my software then, paradoxically, I must restrict them - specifically, from taking freedom away from others.

As such, I believe the BSD style licenses are more idealistic than copyleft licenses, but less effective.

Re:

[quintesse (654840)]

As such, I believe the BSD style licenses are more idealistic than copyleft licenses, but less effective.

Actually, it still think it's the other way around because in YOUR ideal world the BSD license would be enough and there would be no need for all the bits in the GPL that are there to somehow ensure everlasting freedom for the code. This makes YOU idealistic, which is good, but the BSD license itself seems to me to be far from idealistic, it seems more for people who don't want to be bothered to ever t

Re:Branch of Samba?

[jimicus (737525)]

I'm a not an expert on GPLv2, buy can't someone simply juust take the existing Samba CVS code and create a "new" Samba and stay with the GPLv2?

Yes. And Samba has forked in the past.

But it's a big, complex project with a few people behind it and they're pretty good at what they do. Unless you can poach one of them to work on your fork, it'll probably be a good 6 months before anyone on your fork even understands what's going on under the hood, let alone is able to substantially improve on it. Once Samba 4 is declared stable, version 3 will suddenly appear very dated because 4 adds all sorts of goodies - AIUI the plan is to basically bring Samba up to the level of "able to act natively as a DC in an ADS domain" - and a fork will likely die on the vine or exist purely in commercial projects.

Re:Legal - "any later version"

[DaveCar (189300)]

Also, just looking at 3.0.25 here they have the "any later version" option. so even if you retained copyright to your patch you submitted it under the "any later version" clause so they are presumably free to invoke that (as would anyone else who wanted to fork the project).