Re: [tlug] Bill Gates and the GPL , let the flames begin

["Kenneth Burling" <burlingk@example.com>]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 3:08 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:

Phillip Tribble writes:

 

all?")  Many lawyers believe the FSF interpretations way overstep what
U.S. copyright law actually makes enforceable, but we don't know.  The
FSF has enough lawyers and public opinion to get its way regardless of
the law so far, and it has not hesitated to use them.

GPL v2 was worded at least in a judge friendly manner, and did not tell Commercial developers to shove off (Which is practically what v3 seems to have been designed to do.

GPL v2 is basically worded in such a way as to say "I as the copyright holder know my rights, but will allow you to do this...."

GPLv3 then baddly rewords the good parts, and then throws in "As long as you don't want to find any concievable way to do anything real with it."

:P  Most things that were available under v2 seem to be excedingly slow in approaching a change to v3.


 

Even in theory, GPLv3 actually *does* very little that GPLv2 doesn't.
Eg, all of the stuff infringing the user's freedom to run the software
in any way they choose (which the GPLv3 styles as "this is not part of
a technical copy-protection measure") will have essentially no effect
on the DMCA (Stallman admitted this to me, but said "we have to do
*something*"), but does open the door to further politically-motivated
restraints on freedom.  It's political posturing, and ugly (Barack
Obama is a lot more attractive).

"We have to do something" is basically what one says as they lead there organization into social or political suicide...  If that is the only solid answer you have, then you need to think on it some more.  Either that, or pay others to think on it more.  That would have been more financially productive than strongarming their lawyers into signing off on v3.

 

Far from clarifying the ambiguities of the GPLv2, the GPLv3 dives into
contempt of court, by instructing the judge that "even if the license
terms are unenforceable, you should find a way to enforce them anyway".

I was one of the guys that threw up red flags on that one...  That were promptly ignored.  :P  Most of my comments tended to get a response akin to "But...  Their taking our code and making money off of it..."  O.o;;  If you don't want them to make money off of it, then choose a license that says so without telling the judge he can shove the license someplace uncomfortable.

 

It is claimed that the GPLv3 is more "internationalized", but I don't
really see that.  That might be a real benefit, if true.

The points of copyright law that were covered in v2 were practially out of the verne convention.  If anything most countries outside the use reenforce the laws in various places.  v2 worked better.  v3 said "Screw you, I am more important than the law", and it said it in a more internationalized way?  This can't be good. :P

 

My feeling is that if the FSF didn't own all the GNU copyrights, very
few non-fanboys would consider using the GPLv3, because it's not much
of an improvement on, but incompatible with, GPLv2.  But because the
FSF is able to change such a large body of code over to v3 in one
swot, GPLv3 will "succeed" whether it deserves to, or not.

That is just it, the reason the struggle moves on is that they DON'T own them all.  :P There are still pockets of contention.  There are projects with so many fingers in the pot that they can't possibly get them all to give the thumbs up...  I hope.

I have pretty much decided that code that I create on my own will be licensed under the BSD license or similar.  Perhaps dual licensing.