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Some facts about GPL 2 & GPL 3

business, law, tech in changing society / /

From Liz Laffan’s “GPLv2 vs GPLv3: The two seminal open source licenses, their roots, consequences and repercussions” (VisionMobile: September 2007):

From a licensing perspective, the vast majority (typically 60-70%) of all open source projects are licensed under the GNU Public License version 2 (GPLv2).

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GPLv3 was published in July 2007, some 16 years following the creation of GPLv2. The purpose of this new license is to address some of the areas identified for improvement and clarification in GPLv2 – such as patent indemnity, internationalisation and remedies for inadvertent license infringement (rather than the previous immediate termination effect). The new GPLv3 license is nearly double the length of the GPLv2 …

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GPLv3 differs to GPLv2 in several important ways. Firstly it provides more clarity on patent licenses and attempts to clarify what is meant by both a distribution and derivative works. Secondly it revokes the immediate termination of license clause in favour of licensee opportunities to ‘fix’ any violations within a given time-period. In addition there are explicit ‘Additional Terms’ which permits users to choose from a fixed set of alternative terms which can modify the standard GPLv3 terms. These are all welcome, positive moves which should benefit all users of the GPLv3 license.

Nonetheless there are three contentious aspects of GPLv3 that have provoked much discussion in the FOSS community and could deter adoption of GPLv3 by more circumspect users and organisations.

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Richard Stallman on why “intellectual property” is a misnomer

business, language & literature, law, tech in changing society / /

From Richard Stallman’s “Transcript of Richard Stallman at the 4th international GPLv3 conference; 23rd August 2006” (FSF Europe: 23 August 2006):

Anyway, the term “intellectual property” is a propaganda term which should never be used, because merely using it, no matter what you say about it, presumes it makes sense. It doesn’t really make sense, because it lumps together several different laws that are more different than similar.

For instance, copyright law and patent law have a little bit in common, but all the details are different and their social effects are different. To try to treat them as they were one thing, is already an error.

To even talk about anything that includes copyright and patent law, means you’re already mistaken. That term systematically leads people into mistakes. But, copyright law and patent law are not the only ones it includes. It also includes trademark law, for instance, which has nothing in common with copyright or patent law. So anyone talking about “quote intellectual property unquote”, is always talking about all of those and many others as well and making nonsensical statements.

So, when you say that you especially object to it when it’s used for Free Software, you’re suggesting it might be a little more legitimate when talking about proprietary software. Yes, software can be copyrighted. And yes, in some countries techniques can be patented. And certainly there can be trademark names for programs, which I think is fine. There’s no problem there. But these are three completely different things, and any attempt to mix them up – any practice which encourages people to lump them together is a terribly harmful practice. We have to totally reject the term “quote intellectual property unquote”. I will not let any excuse convince me to accept the meaningfulness of that term.

When people say “well, what would you call it?”, the answer is that I deny there is an “it” there. There are three, and many more, laws there, and I talk about these laws by their names, and I don’t mix them up.

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Richard Stallman on proprietary software

business, politics, tech in changing society, technology / /

From Richard Stallman’s “Transcript of Richard Stallman at the 4th international GPLv3 conference; 23rd August 2006” (FSF Europe: 23 August 2006):

I hope to see all proprietary software wiped out. That’s what I aim for. That would be a World in which our freedom is respected. A proprietary program is a program that is not free. That is to say, a program that does respect the user’s essential rights. That’s evil. A proprietary program is part of a predatory scheme where people who don’t value their freedom are drawn into giving it up in order to gain some kind of practical convenience. And then once they’re there, it’s harder and harder to get out. Our goal is to rescue people from this.

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Richard Stallman on the 4 freedoms

business, education, politics, science, tech in changing society, technology / /

From Richard Stallman’s “Transcript of Richard Stallman at the 4th international GPLv3 conference; 23rd August 2006” (FSF Europe: 23 August 2006):

Specifically, this refers to four essential freedoms, which are the definition of Free Software.

Freedom zero is the freedom to run the program, as you wish, for any purpose.

Freedom one is the freedom to study the source code and then change it so that it does what you wish.

Freedom two is the freedom to help your neighbour, which is the freedom to distribute, including publication, copies of the program to others when you wish.

Freedom three is the freedom to help build your community, which is the freedom to distribute, including publication, your modified versions, when you wish.

These four freedoms make it possible for users to live an upright, ethical life as a member of a community and enable us individually and collectively to have control over what our software does and thus to have control over our computing.

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