GPL 3.0 to Penalize Google, Amazon? 582
Michael Ferris writes "Is this the start of a shakedown by the GNU folks? Michael Singer writes that Eben Moglen and the folks rewriting the GPL are looking at a proposal where companies would be required to pay money if they use GPLed software, even if they don't redistribute the software." From the article: "The current version of the GPL, which was last updated in 1991, fails to trigger the open source license if a company alters the code, but does not distribute its software through a CD or floppy disk...the [current] rule does not apply to companies that distribute software as a service, such as Google and eBay, or even dual-license companies like Sleepycat."
Ingenous (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who what when where? (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, when does Stallman's Macarthur Foundation Grant expire?
For the humor impaired: It's a joke son.
Sensationalism at its finest (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, talk about sensationalism. Or maybe I can't read. But I did RTFA, and no where did I see mention of anybody having to pay anything for using GPLed software.
Instead, what I did find was an article which seems to imply that the FSF is trying to further alienate themselves from the real world by effectively prohibiting GPLed software from being used by for-profit organizations, irregardless of whether or not modified software is distributed. Thank God for alternative OSI-certified licenses that promote the continued development of open source software without the political trappings of the GPL.
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
He needs to be watched closely (to prevent blunders like the GFDL), but, he is well-known to have good intentions.
The problem is, if something bad happens to him, it's possible that whatever members of FSF will have the deciding say will push the GPL in a completely different direction. Whoever controls the FSF, controls the vast majority of GPLed software.
I'm not paranoid enough to label FSFians as possible traitors who would follow whoever shakes the purse, hell no -- I have quite a bit of faith in them. However, they may do any modifications to the licenses of software they don't own the copyright to -- it's a huge power. It's dangerous to leave such power in the hands of people not protected by insanity.
Re:This doesn't sound like a good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
These implications of the proposed GPL3 are certainly troubling. How is this different from "evil commercial vendor lock-in"?
I'm not trolling...just hoping that this interpretation of GPL 3 is wrong.
Re:They deliver HTML. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because they use Linux in the Googleplex doesnt mean they use it everywhere.
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, I agree completely - I don't think they'd do something like that. However, they may be forced to hand over control to another party. It's unlikely, but stranger legal things have happened.
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the full section 9, a portion of which you quoted:
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General
Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the
present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a
version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have
the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not
specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by
the Free Software Foundation.
So my question becomes this: What determines whether or not you specified a specific version of the GPL? Most of my comments and the readme file say "Licensed under the GNU General Public License" (no version mentioned), but then included with the distribution is a copy of version 2 of the license. Does that imply strongly enough that version 2 is the specific license under which the software is distributed?
Or do I need to go make some changes and do a commit....
Re:Pot meet kettle (Score:4, Interesting)
My god, I hate it when HP,MS or whomever does this. Now the GPL goes this way, UGH. It's not the fact that they are changing the GPL, that's bad enough but the fact they are retroactivly changing is what makes it so bad. This is the kind of shit the the bad boys do.
"They" can't change the license retroactively. Any software licensed under GPL is either "version 2 only" or "version 2 or later, at your option". So, any GPL software that exists at the moment the GPL-3 is unveiled, you may continue to use as long as you want under GPL-2 terms. Of course, this will not be true of new or updated software released afterward under "version 3 only" or "version 3 or later" terms.
I hope this idea goes no where or you can see any the profesional devs go elsewhere really quickly.
If the GPL-3 turns out to be as implied in the article, I completely agree with you. And I think that most free software authors will as well. If the terms of GPL-3 are that bad, no one will use it and it will quickly become irrelevant - nothing to worry about.
But let's wait until we actually see a draft of a proposed GPL-3, not get upset over third-hand rumors.
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:1, Interesting)
Is he? If you work on one of his core projects, you might not think so. Let's say you've found some amazing piece of compiler technology, it's got a liberal source license, GPL-compatible even, and it would do wonders for GCC.
But it's in C++
You'll find very quickly he's a madman all right. And not your madman.
Re:They deliver HTML. (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, there won't be a retroactive change. What is licensed to me under the GPL 2 now cannot be taken from me. I can choose to use it according to the GPL 3, but I don't have to. Only if the developers release a later version of their program under "GPL 3 or later" can I not fall back to GPL 2. That kind of change would not be retroactive.
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
I you can use older of newer version. This is a very smart move by RMS. If say there is a new situation in the world he'll be able to give people options with new licences, hopefully not allowing for regular style licences(commercial, no source).
Get over it.
2c.
PS: drinking with Alan Cox is something entirely different
And your explanation is wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
This is an idea that has been floating around for several years now. The GPL works by giving provisional permission to do things that you're otherwise prevented from doing by copyright law. If you do those things, then you have to accept the GPL or be in violation of copyright law. Pick your poison.
Copyright law gives [bitlaw.com] IP owners the right to control (within the limits of fair use) the following actions:
The GPL version 2 grants the right to do the first three things. It does not grant the right to do the last 2. The legal idea is that a site like Google is a public performance of the software. To date no court has ruled on this notion, but at least some lawyers think that courts are likely to rule this way. Therefore the GPL version 3 would also grant the right to publically perform and display the software.
If the GPL version 3 comes out with such terms, and a court rules in the way that Stallman hopes that they will, then companies are caught on the horns of a dilemma. They are committing the wrong of publically performing a copyrighted work. Version 2 of the GPL grants them no permission to do so, so they are open to lawsuits. Much of that software comes with terms saying that they can choose to use it under the terms of version 3. If they follow the terms of version 3, then they can avoid those potential lawsuits.
This is, incidentally, a fundamental flaw in the GPL as it is currently constructed. Changing laws and interpretations for copyright may lead to people needing to seek permissions not granted in the GPL. There is no good "upgrade" mechanism in the license as it stands. (Unless you've done what the FSF wants and given the FSF the ability to come out with a new license that people can choose to accept. But in that case your gesture will be likely to be used as the FSF wants, not as you want. As in this instance.)
Stop your FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
GPL is a distribution license not a usage license. (Score:5, Interesting)
Changing from a distribution license to a usage license is a VERY significant change in the spirit of the license.
Quote Last para, Term 0
The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program
Term 9
Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version,
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine this scenario:
Company X is a web hosting company. To be competitative in the marketplace, they adopt GPL'd software, like FooBar. However, they want to differentiate their service, so they extend FooBar to add new functionality, and call it BazBar. Since they are not "distributing" BazBar, only using it in-house, the teeth of the GPL have no affect. They can still sell access to BazBar without distributing it, and therefore requiring their changes to be made public, and effectively locking up the new code they wrote.
I believe that this is the scenario that the GPLv3 is going to address. I sincerely doubt that they will charge to use GPL software in the commonly accepted way, but I think they will change the terms to close this loophole. I think that it will likely be a scenario where any companies currently doing this are given the option of releasing their code, or paying a dollar amount. You can't just tell someone that what they have been doing legally for years is now illegal because of an updated license, so there will have to be options.
If you don't agree with these kinds of changes, license your code under the GPLv2, and make it clear that you will not allow it to be licensed under future versions.
Re:Who what when where? (Score:3, Interesting)
From whence doth your vision stream, Olson? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps he's just managed to read the Affero General Public License v1 [affero.org] and has decided that that's the way that the GPL v3 is going to look? But apparently he hasn't already read the coverage of this rather crappy license that debian-legal gave in 2003 [debian.org] and then informed the FSF (and RMS), explaining that it couldn't possibly be DFSG Free, [debian.org] let alone satisfy the 4 freedoms?
Oh, right. Must not have actually checked all that out. Gee, does Mike Olson even use the GPL at all? Why would he be reviewing it anyway? Well, lets see: hrm... this sure looks like the 3 clause BSD license to me [sleepycat.com]. Yerp. No GPL in sight at all. Ok, so someone who doesn't even use the GPL, (to my knowledge) isn't a lawyer, and isn't a prominent member of the copyleft side of the Free Software movement is reviewing a license that no one else has seen?
I mean, I can understand slashdot editors missing this bit of trivia in their rush to approve/reject a story... but surely Michael Singer at internetnews would have bothered to actually check if Mike Olson was the "insider" he was claiming himself to be?
This story is complete BS (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all the story purports to tell what Eben Moglen is doing but mostly includes quotes from that Olson fellow. The obnly Moglen quote basicly says "let me finish the draft first and then we can discuss it". Then the article continues on pure speculation of what Moglen might be thinking.
Second, the slashdot blurb completely misrepresents the actual referenced article. The shashdot blurb makes it look like the main purpose of the FSF is to hit up google, yahoo, etc. for money. In reality the whole damn controversy is whether the code should be released or not.
Of course if there ever emerges a legal requirement to release the code and the code is not released the FSF might be entitled to damages -- thats just the way the US judicial system works. But that does not mean that the FSF are looking to hit up these companies for money. In every dispute so far the FSF has made it quite clear that they will forgo money damages when the code is actually released.
Now whether GPL derived code used for providing internet services should be released is an very interesting (and increasingly important) issue. However, this slashdot article completely misses the whole issue by making it look like the FSF is just trying to get rich on Google's behalf.
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
The mere notion of comparing the use of a piece of software that happens to present a more public than usual UI to the distribution of software is beyond absurd. In my opinion the fact that the vague definition of prior GPL versions' distribution clause, which could be interpreted by some to require public release of changes distributed only within a company, is also absurd. In fact, in my opinion, a lot of what RMS spews is absurd.
For example, don't get me started on GNU/Linux. What about MIT's X11? What about KDE and Gnome? Each of those probably represents a larger body of code than the FSF contributed. What about BSD? Why not just go all out and call it RedHat/Debian/MIT/Gnome/KDE/GNU/IBM/insert-the- name-of-a-hundred-other-groups-here Linux?
I'm sure some piece of code I have written to support some obscure, ancient piece of Mac hardware has, in some form or another made it into some fairly public versions of the Linux kernel somewhere (through my generous agreement that anything I wrote under a BSD license for MkLinux could be reappropriated freely for use in LinuxPPC). Can I get my name in there too? Where do you draw the line? I draw it at 'Linux'.
The point is, he isn't 'our' madman, as GP (or maybe GGP) poster put it. He's the madman for the most extremist fraction of free software developers. For those of us right on the border between choosing whether to distribute software under the GPL or another license, RMS's ranting is the biggest reason to consider anything other than the GPL, and this latest GPL proposal makes it very hard for those of us not on the lunatic fringe to take anything the FSF has to say seriously.
Just my $0.02.
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Server Side Technology (Score:3, Interesting)
In theory /. threads are about the article cited in the thread. That means that we make references to parts of the article. The article states:
You are right in my reference to the article I did not say "CD and floppy disk" as is stated in the article. However, in the contxt of this /. debate, I beieve that alluding to the section of the article is sufficient. The assumption is that we all read the article.
The article seems to be about code that is being distributed by means other than floppy or cd. For example, there are conversations in this overall discussion about Google distributing fully functional turnkey computers that contain some GPL code. Stallman would want all of the code on that computer open sourced.
Now then, the next logical jump after distributed code brings us into the hornets nest of client server computing. The wording of the article really makes it seem that server side code is the next big issue on the GPL discussion block.
I realize that you are probably new to the internet technology. The Internet uses an idea called "client/server" architecture. Some people use the term "thin client". In this architectural design the main logic resides on the server. The server sends to the client small packets of HTML that the thin client (the web browser) formats and displays for the user.
When you "view source" you only see the HTML produced by the server. The main logic is hidden. HTML is pretty brain dead.
People developing server side applications have a completely different view of copyright than those who deliver their works as a deliverable product. Copyright, after all, was designed to protect distributed works. Web programmers really don't care that much about the HTML. The meat of their program is the logic hidden on the servers.
In most complex web sites, the meat of the program is the computer code that generates the HTML. For example, I could write a program that generates the first hundred thousands decimals of pi and displays it on my web site. Stallman would protest and say that he wants to see the code, and not the result. The code exists solely on my computer, I never distributed it and can claim exemption.
Now, I suspect that the article in question is about closing the loophole that allowed for certain means of distributing compiled computer code without the source. The real battle will come down the road when GPL wants to demand the publishing of all server side code. This would, of course, include all of the business logic so carefully guarded by businesses.
The question of closing a few loopholes that might allow the distribution of compiled code is one issue. The demand to see all code that exists on computers that contain GPL code will be another can of worms altogether.
Having developed programs with object oriented techniques. I know that there really is not a clear delineation between code and data. Code is just a bunch of data. Data really only has meaning within the context of the logic that interprets it, and so on. It is not difficult to escalate the demand to see the code on a computer to a demand to see all of the data as well.
Stallman disciples will say that the demand for full access to computers only applies to servers. To make life even more interesting, every computer on the internet has the potentional to function as a server. Well, you can take this argument where ever you like.
Re:This doesn't sound like a good idea (Score:1, Interesting)
Correct. That would be why nobody is proposing it.
I'm quite serious. Ignoring the Slashdot summary, which is as misleading as usual, where in the article do you find any reference to charging fees for the use of GPL'd software?
All I can find is a line near the end about companies having to pay "with their code or with their wallet". And that reads to me like the usual GPL line of "either you open your code, or you persuade the copyright holders to offer you a different license - which they will probably want a lot of money for".
Re:Future versions of the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine (going off on a paranoid conspiracy-theory tangent here) that the FSF is, e.g., bought out by some company or so, which releases v4 stating that the program essentially becomes Public Domain.
It's not about what the user can choose, it's that this possibility of choice may in the worst case defeat the original purpose of requiring the software to remain Free. As a developer I wouldn't be happy about that. Imagine, then, that some company takes your nice Free software, applies the 0wn3d GPLv4 to it, and puts it in their proprietary product, never under any obligation to release the source code and give back to the community.
Are people going to choose this license, voluntarily, in droves? Yes! (At least those that don't know how to spell "ethics".) At that point all Free software would be 0wn3d... new projects could go under new licenses (e.g. a GPLv2 variant without the "at your option" statement), but projects that were at some point licensed under the real GPLv2 would effectively be lost.
I might be missing something, but I don't see why that's not possible (correct me please if I am wrong)... I mean, right now the FSF is Stallman's organization, but who knows what will happen to it in the future. And I think, this "any later version" statement is a truly dangerous statement that should be done away with for v3.