The last software licence you’ll need?

• Article 10 of 16
• LinuxUser & Developer, March 2006
• View a PDF of the original article

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | All 3 Pages

Few software licences have caused even a fraction of the controversy that the GNU Public Licence (GPL) has caused. Developed in 1989 by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the GPL has been described as “communist”, “Pacman-like”, “a cancer”, “anti-American”, “viral” and “anti-business”. There’s been so much FUD surrounding it that to this day, many companies believe erroneously that simply using software licensed under the GPL will force them to publish their internal software’s source code.

So it was with some alarm that certain quarters greeted the announcement last year by the Free Software Foundation that it was planning to update the GPL. Many assumed, for example, that Stallman and the FSF would amend the GPL to prohibit interaction with web services unless their source code was published. By the time the FSF released the first draft of the proposed update in January of this year, various groups had convinced themselves the FSF was intent on nationalising their businesses and prohibiting money-making from GPL software.

Instead, the FSF released a relatively benign first draft of the GPL, version three. Although there were some new clauses and amendments that gave concern to various companies and company lawyers, most were relieved. Nevertheless, there are many still feeling uneasy about the GPLv3. What are their worries and are they justified?

The last big update to the GPL was in 1991 when version two was released. Version two was actually a slackening of the terms of version one: the FSF had come to the conclusion that version one was hindering the adoption of free software and decided to make it less restrictive. Since those amendments, the GPL has remained virtually unaltered.

Nonetheless, the industry has moved on and there have been various developments that have caused the FSF concern. Most notably, DRM (digital rights/restrictions management) and patents have become a new method, whether intentional or not, for companies and governments to curtail the spread of free software.

As Eben Moglen, general counsel of the FSF, explained during a conference to unveil the new GPL, “Our goal is to make clear that GPL software may not be used to create forms where tinkered versions will not run or will not run for the same purposes on the same data… When the mechanisms of freedom are used to create unfreedom, it goes further than the GPL can possibly be expected to follow and we will not go there.”

Both Stallman and the FSF intend, therefore, to use the new version of the GPL to stop DRM and patents being used in conjunction with free software. They also intend for it to stop companies such as Tivo, the US personal video recorder manufacturer, from using GPL software for spyware. Currently, Tivo’s Linux-based recorders report back their owners viewing habits, something Stallman describes as being close to the edge of legality under the GPL and which he’d like to stop.

But the GPL revision isn’t just an opportunity to mark a line in the road that “unfree” software techniques must not cross. It’s as much an opportunity to clear up language and foster free software growth.

One of the ambitions for version three is to harmonise the GPL as much as possible with the different contract and copyright laws around the world. The GPL, of course, is not a contract. But to stop it being considered as a potential contract in some jurisdictions, some changes in wording are necessary. At the moment, the GPL only really takes heed of US law.

Another issue is the compatibility with other free software licences, the number of which has grown considerably since 1991. Combining software that operate under different licences can be difficult or even impossible, so another goal of revising the GPL has been to make the GPL more compatible with other licences through new clauses that explain what terms from other licences can be acceptably combined with the GPL.

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."

She was also wary of the licence-compatibility clauses, although was positive about the idea in general. “If this feature of the license is adopted, it would become necessary to track a new class of special licence information; whereas in the past, GPL-licensed projects had much simpler licensing information – just GPL.”

For the most part, though, companies are broadly welcoming of the draft GPL. So far, few have spoken out against any particular terms of the draft, even to each other. MySQL’s vice president of community relations, Kaj Arnö, is on one of the FSF’s discussion committees now studying the draft of new GPL. He says that so far, most companies have said it was a good update. “The effects are mostly positive. It’s clearer, less ambiguous and more compatible. Overall, the draft as far as it was written has now been welcomed by all the different parties, including companies such as HP and Apple.”

So far, his committee has raised 31 comments on the draft that it must now work its way through, but he doesn’t envisage any radical changes being proposed. After considering these, the committee will make suggestions about potential amendments to the FSF; the FSF will then decide whether to include them in a future draft, along with comments from other committees and the public. After one or two more drafts, the FSF will release the final version of the GPL no later than March 2007, but preferably on 15 January 2007. All projects that include licensing terms of “GPLv2 or greater” will be automatically updated to use the new version, while other projects will have to decide whether to migrate to version three, if that’s even possible.

With the decision about the inclusion of DRM and patents clauses in the GPL down to the FSF, it’s unlikely they will be removed during future drafts since they embody so many of the foundations’ beliefs. That means that some vendors that have patents or DRM software, but who are also strong open source proponents, are going to have to make a choice. Given the industry and customer momentum behind open source, many of these companies are going to have to make hard decisions: abandon open source and potentially lose millions or even billions of dollars in revenue; or abandon aggressive use of patents and any use of DRM altogether and potentially lose the same amount of money.

Most will side with GPLv3, whether they like it or not. Some will fudge the issue and try to avoid shipping GPLv3 software while continuing with GPLv2 programs. That will be a stop-gap solution at best as the industry marches on and projects update automatically to GPLv3. Then they’ll be faced with a classic dilemma: which will win – an unstoppable force or an immovable object?

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | All 3 Pages