As promised, the third draft of the GPL 3 was released today, strongly
influenced and delayed by the patent agreement between Novell and Microsoft.
The third draft also refines terms on termination, compatibility and
applicability of the defining license of the Free Software movement. The
ultimate effect of the GPL version 3 may well be extremely widespread,
affecting countless thousands of software applications and tens of millions
of developers and users.
“The GPL was designed to ensure that all users of a program receive the four
essential freedoms which define free software,” Richard Stallman, president
of the FSF and principal author of the GNU GPL, said in a statement. “The
recent patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell aims to undermine these
freedoms. In this draft we have worked hard to prevent such deals from
making a mockery of free software.”
Since its first draft, the GPL version 3 has sought to provide patent protection for users, which is
further extended in the third draft in direct response to the Microsoft
Novell agreement.
The new patent requirements in the third draft are
intended to prevent distributors from colluding with patent holders to
provide discriminatory protection from patents, according to the Free
Software Foundation (FSF).
“Novell and Microsoft have recently attempted a new way of using patents
against our community, which involves a narrow and discriminatory promise
by a patent holder not to sue customers of one particular distributor of a
GPL-covered program,” according to the FSF in its rationale document explaining
GPL version 3 draft 3. “Such deals threaten our community in several ways,
each of which may be regarded as de facto proprietization of the software.
“If users are frightened into paying that one distributor just to be safe
from lawsuits, in effect they are paying for permission to use the program,”
the rationale continues. “They effectively deny even these customers the full
and safe exercise of some of the freedoms granted by the GPL. And they make
disfavored free software developers and distributors more vulnerable to
attacks of patent aggression by dividing them from another part of our
community, the commercial users that might otherwise come to their defense.”
For those that actually do end up violating the GPL, the third draft is
more lenient than previous drafts in that it provides an option for remedy in
the license terms. According to the FSF, first-time GPL violators can have
their license automatically restored if they remedy the problem within
30 days.
An effort has also been made in the third draft to help GPL-licensed
software users understand when they actually need to provide source code. When it
comes to typical PC or server applications, the needs are clear and
self-evident. However there had been some confusion when it comes to the use
of GPL’ed software in devices like the popular Tivo for example.
The third
draft now stipulates that manufacturers of consumer products that use GPL’ed
software need to provide the source code as well as installation information
for the source code.
“GPLv3 introduces provisions that respond to the growing practice of
distributing GPL-covered programs in devices that employ technical means to
restrict users from installing and running modified versions,” the FSF’s
rationale document explains. “This practice thwarts the expectations of
developers and users alike, because the right to modify is one of the core
freedoms the GPL is designed to secure.”
That said, the need to provide source is not required according to the GPLv3
draft 3,” if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install
modified object code on the User Product.”
Though the third draft of GPLv3 adds much in terms of helping to clarify the
terms of the license and make it compatible, in various use cases it still
falls short in one key area — compatibility with the popular Apache 2.0
license.
“We regret that we will not achieve compatibility of the Apache License,
Version 2.0, with GPLv3, despite what we had previously promised,” according to the rationale document. “We look forward to further discussions
with the Apache Foundation in the hope of achieving compatibility in the
future.”
With the release of the third draft, a 60-day period now begins for public comment. After the 60 days are up, the FSF expects to issue a
fourth draft that it will call the last-call draft. The last call draft
will be followed by a 30-day comment period at the end of which the GPL v 3
will be formally adopted by the FSF as an official license.
