Comments on: New GPL Due Today

By: DCahoe

DCahoe — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:16:03 +0000

Any word out of TiVo on this?

By: MegaZone

MegaZone — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:22:20 +0000

Dave – Filings include all manner of worst case scenarios. It is all just legal ass-covering so *if* there is an impact investors can’t claim the company hid the risks.

Toss – Has there been a statement that OpenSolaris *will* too v3? The last I saw out of Sun was that they were *considering* v3, and that it looked favorable. But that they had not yet decided.

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:21:22 +0000

Forgot to mention, yes, Open Solaris WILL be under GPL3…soon!

http://www.opensolaris.org/os/

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:15:58 +0000

Hoo-ray for GPL 3! I know today is all about the iPhone, and that’s cool. But let’s not forget how important this license is.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:53:44 +0000

Hm, interesting. Sounds like if anything were to happen, it surely wouldn’t be in the short-term. So why would TiVo had mentioned it in their filing? Unless they need reason to justify the resources to migrate onto another platform…

By: MegaZone

MegaZone — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:38:43 +0000

I’d change the subject “New Linux License Due Today” – because that’s totally inaccurate.

The GPL v3 drops today – but it means absolutely nothing for Linux and it is NOT the new Linux license. Linux is licensed under the GPL v2 exclusively, and will not migrate to v3 unless and until Linus decides it will, since he holds the rights to many of the key components and steers development.

Even if Linus decides he wants to migrate to v3 – a huge *if* since he is ‘happier’ with the final v3 than the drafts, but still not ‘happy’ – it will take a long time. Every piece of software than comprises the Linux kernel – and that’s thousands of contributions – would need to be relicensed under v3. That means tracking down every contributor – which includes the estates of people who have died, companies and corporations of all sizes (one-person shops to IBM), and getting them to agree.

Any software that cannot be migrated – because the owner can’t be found or simply refuses to adopt v3 – would then need to be replaced by brand new code.

It’ll be a huge mess if they do it.

There *are* some reasons to perhaps do it. If there is a lot of pressure from the community it may happen. If Sun releases Solaris under GPL v3 – which they’re considering – that is a big incentive to migrate Linux, because it would allow cross-pollination between the code bases. And both platforms have some very nice bits that the other platform wishes they could have.

But it is also possible that the OSS community will largely shrug and ignore v3. There is nothing to stop people from continuing to use v2, as well as other licenses – MPL (Mozilla Public License), Berkeley style licensing, Apache license, CDDL, etc.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 18:00:28 +0000

I agree didn’t convey that the GNU GPL is produced by a separate entity and can be used with any software, not just Linux.

I was hopeful that “it�s not clear which Linux components and distros will be tagged with the new license” expressed that I don’t know the breadth of adoption or potential impact yet.

I’m obviously not an expert in this area, but it’s a timely topic with possible implications that merit discussion. So I’ve made a few tweaks to the post based on your feedback – hopefully it’s a bit more accurate and clear.

Let the discussion continue:

By: Zach Carter

Zach Carter — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:09:24 +0000

The GPL is written by the Free Software Foundation, not the Linux community. It is the FSF that is opposed to “Tivo-isation” so much that they rewrote the license. Its not very likely that Linus and the Linux community will adopt the new GPL any time soon. One should note that there are many many more software products besides Linux that are covered by they GPL license. There are even concerns that the iphone (and MacOS), may have some GPL components.