Misc. bits.

[Colin McGregor]

--- James Knott <james.knott-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 11:03:27PM -0400, Colin
> McGregor wrote:
> >   
> >> First I trust everyone here knows that the Free
> >> Software Foundation has officially released the
> GNU
> >> Public Licence version 3. The GPL version 2 is
> the
> >> licence that most of the software a typical
> GNU/Linux
> >> system is released under. Provisions in the GPL 3
> will
> >> make things ... interesting ... for a few
> companies,
> >> such as Microsoft, Novell, TiVo and Xandros (all
> who
> >> have in one way or another attempted to exploit
> >> loopholes in GPL 2, that are now closed in GPL
> 3).  
> >>     
> >
> > So we go from loopholes we know about to loopholes
> yet to be discovered.
> > It's just like upgrading from software with known
> bugs to software with
> > unknown bugs.  No wonder some people aren't sure
> about it. :)
> >   
> 
> Please make a list of all unknown loopholes.  ;-)

Yes, GPL 2 turned out to have some issues the could
not be seen when it was written and it may turn out
that GPL 3 has issues. But on balance it is an
improvement over what has been, where firms like TiVo
stayed inside the letter of GPL 2 while spitting on
the ideals that drove GPL 2. 

The fact that the SAMBA people have decided to convert
to GPL 3 is in my books a great thing. This will make
life rough for Novell and/or Microsoft, as either
Novell has to either fork a piece of software that is
key to their Microsoft compatibility efforts or they
have to drag Microsoft kicking and screaming (which
they have already started doing) into GPL 3.

So, will bugs appear in GPL 3, almost certainly yes. I
could see laws getting passed that would blunt GPL 3,
out of malice or a law passed in to fix one real
problem causing some unplanned problem with GPL3. 

Regardless, the idea that if you get a piece of GPL 3
software and then distribute it, the people who get
that software must have the same freedom you had is
central. If 5, 10 or 20 years down the road a GPL 4
needs to be written, fine, so be it.


Colin McGregor

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