O'Reilly did an interview with Richard Stallman where he talked about the GPL version 3. I was originally apprehensive about the upcoming change to the license, I was worried that the FSF would take it too far. I've heard rumors that the new version would deal with patents, and I disagree with the stance that the FSF has taken on patents. These questions eased my fears:

You said also that GPL 3 "will probably give very simple permission for using the contributors' patents." Does this mean every patent of the contributor, or only those that cover features already in the software?

The implicit license, we believe, only covers techniques used in the code as the distributor distributes it. We're not sure exactly what GPL 3 will say about this, but it won't be greatly different.

I thought about this, and came to the conclusion that as soon as a company releases a piece of code under GPL 3 that uses one of its patents, everyone will be able to use that patent freely, provided that he respect GPL 3 terms.

Not quite. It means that everyone will be able to use the same patented technique that the released code uses, by using that code under the GPL terms.

I think that is a very reasonable way to look at the license. Basically saying that if you distribute code under the GPL you can't attack users for patent violations later. I was much more worried about what they would do with version 3.

My fears are largely derived from the changing the name of the LGPL from the Library GNU Public License to the Lesser GNU Public License. At this time the FSF also recommended not using the LGPL except in special situations. If all libraries were changed, then proprietary applications could not build on open source libraries, effectively removing proprietary applications from free software platforms.

I like the idea of proprietary applications being allowed on free software platforms. I feel that allowing that is saying: "We think our way is better, but we'll let you try yours. I hope you'll join us when you're ready." I would rather people make free software because they think it is a better way to do development, rather than being forced to because a library they need is under a particular license. I would like companies participating in Open Source to be willing participants.

Even if copyright holders will cross license a GPL'd library, a particular piece of software would have to have the library statically linked as it couldn't dynamically link in the GPL version of the library. Thus removing many of the security benefits of dynamically loaded libraries, increasing memory requirements as multiple version of the library have to be loaded in RAM, and making the application immune to distribution specific optimizations of the library. All of these are bad things, which are promoted by libraries being GPL instead of LGPL.

I also feel that the demotion of the LGPL was a power grab by the Free Software Foundation. It was done at a time when Linux was gaining popularity, and I think the were angry at proprietary applications using their free OS. They were, in essence, trying to lock proprietary software companies out of Linux. Free software to me is about removing lock out of any kind, not just supporting the people I like.

In the end, I'm very happy with the way it looks like they're going with GPL version 3. It seems my worries were unfounded.


posted Sep 26, 2005 | permanent link