Linus Says No GPLv3 for the Linux Kernel 415
HenchmenResources writes "Late Wednesday a posting from Linus Torvalds appered on the the Linux Kernel Mailing List. In it Linus states that the Linux Kernel will remain under the GPLv2. Types Linus,"The "version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version" language in the GPL copying file is not - and has never been - part of the
actual License itself.""
Well, this is how it goes: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What v3 does he mean? (Score:4, Interesting)
At least with the FSF model, it's not 100% trust based; at least last time I checked they do sign a contract with the assigner saying that they'll distribute the code under a free license or the copyright reverts, or something along those lines. I can't remember the exact wording.
Refusing contributions? (Score:2, Interesting)
Including a GPLv3 licensed parts will require distribution of the derived work (i.e. the kernel) to comply with both GPLv2 and GPLv3 requirements, thus effectively making the whole kernel GPLv3.
~velco
Why trust anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe Linus doesn't LIKE what GPL3 requires? (Score:2, Interesting)
I can tell you that I don't care for several of the provisions. They are VERY anti-business. This license is less free than others because of the new provisions. I predict that the new wording will drive more new projects to BSD style licensing.
Don't get me wrong - I hate DRM just like everyone else, but I think GPL3 goes over-board. It seems more a political statement than a practical license now.
Anyone else notice... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/20/226 [lkml.org]
http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/10/23/186 [lkml.org]
Just the kernel? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm primarily concerned with gcc, glibc and the likes. X has its own license that I'm OK with. The rest of the apps are not critical and easily replaceable. gcc glibc and the kernel are damn hard to replace... they exist alone. Others have competitors.
I dont want any of GPLv3 in my system just as I dont want any of SCO code in my system. Maybe the final GPLv3 will be more palatable than it is now.
Re:Don't see how this is a story. (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC Linus has said that back when he started coding Linux that he was not aware of the *BSD project (Free only at that point I think but am not sure) and that if he had known of it he would have simply used that. Also, and I'm going to just disclaim the rest of this post here and drop it as it is getting old, pretty much the only reason he GPLed it was because that was the only free license he knew of and to thank RMS for GCC. He has also *never* really been political, either way. And has always seemed to make choices based on the quality of code as he sees it (Bitkeeper, as an example but I am *not* making any statements about the quality of said code either way simply that he *thought* it as better and used it in spite of the license).
So having established that Linus seems to be pretty much a political agnostic (As a *BSD guy this is one of the many things I respect about the guy).
The new version of the GPL seems to me to be *very* political. In fact political almost to the point where I'm not sure it can really be called a free software license anymore. I mean *YES* the things it is against are evil evil evil and should be wiped from the face of the Earth. But a "free software" license is IMO, and given the history and what we are seeing now I think one could guess that Linus would agree, NOT the place to fight that battle. Use restrictions are *very* much against what many of us see as the whole point of free software. I think this starts us down a very bad slippery slope and one that the FSF is insane to step onto. I, for one, am glad to see Linus avoiding it.
Re:Which is why HURD will never see the light of d (Score:2, Interesting)
That sweeping statement don't take into account just how vast the Free Software Directory is. Maybe you should look it over, its pretty large. OpenBSD, and many other distros/operating systems with strong philosophy have alot of code, making that statement false.
The philosopy of sharing code (whether GNU or BSD or otherwise) is only reason we have code to look at at all.
Are GPL2 and GPL3 compatible? (Score:2, Interesting)
First the "or later" clauses in some parts of the linux kernel are effectively meaningless unless you are willig to rewrite the other parts from new.
Second, we will split into two incompatible GPL universes (or three if there is such thing as GPL1!) with legacy GPL2, newer GPL3 and some GPL2-or-later. And anybody can modify GPL2-or-later and release the result as GPL2-only.
Share and enjoy!
John
Re:Wasn't this already covered? (Score:2, Interesting)
Case closed?
Not when you have hardware/software signature checking in the layer above you. No signature? Sorry, won't run. Or if you can, you're not recognized as the same program and it won't let you access any data. Open source means nothing in that case, because the protection isn't in the source code.
That is why they are building a digital chain of trust right up to the TCPA root in a tamper-resistant hardware chip on your computer. That key can not be revealed, and this ripples down throughout the chain. The GPLv3 will be fundamentally incompatible with any program using the Trusted Computing, because all the necessary keys can never be revealed. I assume that is the point.
Re:Which is why HURD will never see the light of d (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting advertorial on the page (Score:2, Interesting)
MOD UP! (Score:2, Interesting)
The guy that started the topic is the same !#@&% guy that offered to relicense the linux kernel for some $50,000 not some time ago.
Jeff V. Merkey rides again!
Good catch. I never would have noticed that but it does put thing in perspective!
--MarkusQ
Re:Not sure I understand (Score:5, Interesting)
- Public domain allows people to do anything they like with your code, including making minor mods and claiming it as all their own work, or making minor mods and selling the result as closed-source code.
- BSD allows reuse of your code or a modified version of your code, in anything (including commercial software), without releasing source, so long as they credit you. In other words you can't claim it as your own work.
- LGPL allows reuse of your code as a component part of a commercial software system - hence its alternative name of "library GPL". You don't need to release the code for anything that uses this code/library. However if you make changes to the LGPL code/library then you must release the changes. Again, credits are required.
- GPL goes a step further. If you use a GPL code/library component as part of your software, then you must also release *all* your software as GPL as well, otherwise you may not use that code/library component. Again, there's the requirement for releasing code and credits.
There's many other licenses, but you get the idea.
There's two different philosophies here that drive this.
The first is the Open Source philosophy (Linus and ESR are the drivers here). This says that if everyone works together, we can build something better than closed source software. But it doesn't invalidate the existence of closed source software - it acknowledges that this only works for mass-market software, so there will always be niches where closed-source is a better choice. Basically their drive is to help people do their jobs more efficiently.
The second is the Free Software philosophy (driven by RMS and the FSF group). This says that the very *existence* of closed-source software is immoral, and anyone using closed-source software (even in niches where no free equivalent exists) is guilty of immorality (RMS says that if no free software exists to do a job, then you should refuse to do that job). Software is therefore created as a moral imperative, rather than as a means to an end of carrying out some task (such as web browsing or word processing).
Grab.
Re:Just the kernel? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linus does not trust Stallman (Score:1, Interesting)
> proprietary software coexisting. Stallman no longer wants to coexist
> so I've not supported his views for some time.
I also have no problem with proprietary and OSS coexisting. One thing you might not realize is that a lot of proprietary vendors do have a problem with OSS existing and DRM is one of the tools that could be used to lock out OSS.
Consider the possibility of PCs being built that will only boot operating systems that have been digitally signed by FUBAR Corp. and that FUBAR Corp. charges $1000 per OS signing. Microsoft would have no problem paying $1000 per OS release but Linux would be shut out.
While RMS may be a bit of a loon, it is uncanny how accurate his "right to read" essay has been at predicting the future of DRM. That prediction of the future is every monopolists wet dream.
I guess the lesson to take from this is that you need to be even more vigilant against the proprietary extremists as they seem to be winning the battle.
Re:Which is why HURD will never see the light of d (Score:5, Interesting)
"Which is why HURD will never see the light of day in any substantial fashion. Philosophy doesn't yield code."
If you simply want to argue over the semantics of whether or not philosophy yields code or people yield code, read no further; I have nothing to say to you. The point of this post realtes to substance, not semantics. (And before you stop reading, ask yourself this: what is philosophy without people?) Your second statement is clearly a generalization you're drawing from your first, and in incorrect one, at that. As GP alluded to, the GNU in GNU/Linux is all the utilities you use on the command line, up to and including the command line itself, and is under the copyright of the FSF. I haven't done recent SLOC counts on GNU vs. Linux, but I would be surprised if they weren't at least comparable - I'd expect that GNU actually has produced substantially more source code (that is used all the time by all manner of users and developers) than the Linux kernel itself these days. Back in 2002 [dwheeler.com], RedHat 7.1 was studied and though the kernel was the largest single body of source (~2.5 million lines), there are GNU programs all over that quickly outstrip the kernel in sheer volume of source: gcc alone is huge (~900k lines), but emacs (~600k lines) and glibc (~600k lines) are both quite large as well. Those are only three GNU programs, the directory of FSF software [fsf.org] contains (as an estimate) hundreds, including the Hurd itself.
Indeed, philosophy is a manner of viewing of the world and is expressed not by some abstract theoretical paper you write, but in how you choose to live and contribute your work to others. In this sense, philosophy is very much responsible for yielding code - do you honestly think that without the philosophical buy-in of its contributors, free software would be anything today?
Re:What v3 does he mean? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wasn't this already covered? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly.
And Linus's point is that that makes it fundamentally incompatible with other forms of code signing too. The whole "Trusted Computing" thing is just a logical extension of current code-signing practice, you can't ban one without affecting the other.
Example: You want your OS's auto-update mechanism to validate updates against your vendors' private key ? I do. That's how I trust it. Your OS is GPL v3 ? - then your vendor has to publish the keys. Bye bye trust.
Re:Which is why HURD will never see the light of d (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, code quantity is in no way an indicator of *quality*. On top of that, some of the projects you mentioned are much older than the Linux kernel. There's multiple metrics you must use if you are going to draw such conclusions. Emacs could be 50 million lines of pure GNU GPL code -- It's still a shitty editor.
Re:I don't get it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nor does it matter if we create a large infrastructure where Linus signs his releases and we write software that rejects unsigned releases
The fact that you _could_ use the unsigned releases elsewhere is irrelevant [or else TIVO could say that you _could_ run their source unsigned elsewhere].
The "recommended or principal context of use" would be an environment that checks for the signature (which is the whole damn point), therefore the keys would have to be disclosed.
GPLv3 attempts to prohibit its use with any sort of trusted distribution architecture. It doesn't (and probably isn't able to) make distinction between "good" or "bad" trusted distribution.
- or at least that is the way Linus seems to read it and is one reason why he says he rejects it. I have to say I agree with his reading of it.
Re:Which is why HURD will never see the light of d (Score:3, Interesting)
If the only thing "holding HURD back" is really the assignment of copyright to GNU, then perhaps the way to move forward is to create a non-GNU fork (which doesn't require people to assign copyright). In fact, if someone did that they could even immediately merge all the usable code they can find from the Linux kernel, vastly improving the poor (or so I've heard) driver situation on HURD.
Re:What v3 does he mean? (Score:3, Interesting)
"; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version"
clause in the original version. One of two things _can_ happen:
1. The FSF _can_ change the license to a MIT/BSD style AT ANY TIME.
2. The GPL _should_only_ (theoretically) become more restrictive by design.
Sure, this may sound impossible, paranoid, and possibly stupid, but it is not out of the realm of legal possibilities. Since a lot of developers (myself included at one point) have not given our code and copyrights much thought, this gives the FSF a tremendous amount of power over a millions of lines of "GPLv2 and later" code. Since the FSF is the only entity capable of modifying or releasing future versions of the GPL (as stated in the GPL), we have to trust they will not tamper with the spirit of the license. If they did alter the license to reflect the spirit of the MIT license (20 years from now or next week), imagine the storm.
Lets not hold the FSF up to such a dim light; let's imagine a company bought them out. Don't say this is not possible as EVERYONE HAS A PRICE. So, this company altered the GPL to a MIT style. YOUR CODE IS NOW IN THE Public Domain. This company and anyone else could use our "GPLv2 (or any later version)" code to do whatever they want, completely against our initial wishes. We allowed this by leaving that clause intact. You might change your license to use ONLY the GPLv2 at this point, but your "GPLv2 and later" code may still exist in some repository somewhere and you've lost the game.
As for #2, well, the FSF doesn't plan to do #1 intentionally (hopefully) so they will make it more restrictive. If I were to take a piece of GPL code, and GPLv2 says I can't rebrand and sell it without the author's permission, but GPLv15 says I can, I think I'll go with GPLv15. The FSF doesn't want this, so the GPL will only become more restrictive. You don't change the rules of a game unless you do it to your favor.
The only reason to put the "or later" clause in the GPL is to maintain as much control over as much stuff as possible.
Fortunately, we have a crazy hippie captain at the helm, RMS. If the FSF were run like any other company (for profit or not), we would not be where we are today. Hostile takeovers on the board might be possible at the FSF.
* I know Linus removed this from the kernel, but many other developers don't care / don't know.
** This post isn't directed at the parent since the parent specified Linux.
If I were a major software company with money to burn, I would do this.
1. Grab as much "GPL and later" code as possible.
2. Build and brand this code. Prepare to market and copyright it.
3. Buy out the FSF guys and redo the GPL to MIT.
4. Profit.
Yeah, this may be inane paranoid rambling, but hackers have the same thought patterns as slick lawyers. We both look for holes in the system to deliver our payload.
Re:DRM, private keys (Score:3, Interesting)
DRM is incompatible with the GPL because it violates the principle that the user should have total and complete control over the tools he uses. That's exactly the goal that RMS wants to achieve with the GPL in the first place!
Re:What v3 does he mean? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course it is!
Can't refute an exclamation point.
For one FLOSS developers often happen to be users as well
Yes, but it only protects their freedoms as users, not developers. It is possible for one person to be affected in both positive and negative respects from a given situation.
also developers tend to be more interested in source code then users...
That's true, but what does it have to do with your point? Substituting an ellipse for reasoning isn't the best way to convince.
Re:TiVo Series II uses this trick to prevent hacki (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What v3 does he mean? (Score:3, Interesting)
No.
Linux is more popular than HURD because it has been around longer and is is more useful. Hurd came late. A developer can go one of two ways. Work on Linux and expand a working system that is used by millions or work on a system that few have ever heard about.
Frankly I don't like what I have read of GPL v3 and I feel that it will not be as popular as GPL v2. I would also have to say that the importance of RMS and the EFF will decrease if this is adopted. I will say that it will have no impact on HURD one way or the other.
I will also say I would love to see HURD used in more academic settings. It is an interesting project.