The last software licence you’ll need?
- Article 10 of 16
- LinuxUser & Developer, March 2006
The best-known and most notorious free software licence in the world, the GNU GPL, is being updated for the first time in 15 years. Rob Buckley finds out how businesses have been taking to the news, and how it will affect end-users.
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The reaction to the GPL has mostly been good. Most of the open source community has accepted these changes and even greeted them. Branden Robinson, the Debian Project Leader saye he is “impressed by the large and small changes. In a nutshell, I like it.”
Similarly, Andrew Tridgell, founder of the Samba project, says, “It takes some interesting and, I think, very promising approaches to problems that have been big issues for the free software community for a long time, such as the patent problem and the problem of license incompatibility.”
But others have reservations. Linus Torvalds has already said that the Linux kernel will continue to use version two of the GPL, for both legal and personal reasons. “The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some individual files are licenseable under v3, but not the kernel in general. And quite frankly, I don't see that changing. I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. 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.”
Gary Barnett, a research director at analysis group Ovum, is more welcoming. “It looks promising, but I’m going to have to wander off into the wilderness to think about it.” The patents clause is “very necessary” according to Barnett, because of the risks to open source and free software that patent pools could prove. But the DRM clauses “did make me blink a bit. As a licence now, it feels too restrictive. If you write something, you can licence it any way you like, but how much influence should you have on what someone else can write?” Barnett says that while he can completely understand the need of Stallman and the FSF to include terms against DRM, he feels it’s an issue that should be resolved by consumers.
The good news for most end users, according to Barnett, is that they shouldn’t be affected by the proposed changes in the GPL. While the GPL has become longer, it now spells out more clearly what rights and requirements are placed on anyone using GPL software and combining it with their own code. This makes it far easier for businesses to decide for themselves, without resorting to hearsay or lawyers, what the implications might be for their adoption of free software or releasing software under the GPL. Only those intending to use DRM or patented technology need reconsider.
Sacha Labourey, general manager of JBoss Group Europe, is paying close attention to the GPL as well. Although JBoss licenses its software using the Lesser GPL (LGPL), FSF has already said it expects to make similar changes to the LGPL, starting in May. “It raises some good questions, but we’re not very sure a licence is the right way to solve them. The market should select what is good, and I’m not sure customers care. We wouldn’t want a situation where the GPLv3 is not used.”
In particular, Labourey shares Torvalds’ wariness of the GPL’s DRM clauses. “I don’t know yet the extent of the DRM clauses and all the potential scenarios. Even if you don’t implement DRM yourself, what about others? It might have a cascade effect, generate FUD and that’s the worst thing.”
But the patent clauses also “makes a lot of companies nervous”, according to Labourey. Stallman has given some reassurances that he doesn’t intend the GPL to stop companies having patents at all, since that would leave them defenceless against other companies with patents, only to stop them using their portfolio against free software. But, says Labourey, unless the licence spells out that intent, it leaves more room for FUD. “There’s nothing worse than having to interpret a licence.”
Certainly, HP, which otherwise greeted the new GPL enthusiastically, is still thinking about what the DRM and patent clauses mean for it, particularly given it has one of the largest patent portfolios of any technology company.
Christine Martino, vice president of open source and Linux at HP, says, "This is an area we will continue to monitor and assess. We think there will be a lot of comments on the DRM and patent provisions. HP doesn't have positions on these at this time but will be watching closely and commenting as we see fit within the FSF discussion group process."
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