The Future of GPLv3 Hangs In the Balance

New submitter jms00 writes: A years-long legal battle has quietly escalated into what could become the defining moment for the future of GPLv3, with implications that could reshape software freedom as we know it.

At issue is whether licensors have the power to impose 'further restrictions' on open-source software, potentially undermining the explicit rights granted to users and developers under AGPLv3, GPLv3, and LGPLv3.

The outcome of this case, now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, could set a dangerous precedent, limiting the ability to remove proprietary restrictions from copyleft-licensed software.

With little public attention on the case, the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has stepped up as a key voice in defense of user rights, filing a critical amicus brief to challenge the lower court's ruling and protect the principles of software freedom.

Nawww

[Aighearach]

The defining moment(s) of the future of GPL3 happened long ago, when it was rejected by most of the community in favor of either staying with GPL2 or switching to the Apache license.

Kinda gross that instead of linking to the case or reporting on the case the link is to an amicus brief, which is completely irrelevant and unlikely to even be read by anybody on the court.

Also you forgot to even say who the parties are, which is how cases are identified.

Re:

[Bodhammer]

So, pretend I still wear a mask when I drive alone in my internal combustion vehicle. Is this a big deal or not?

Re:

[vbdasc]

GPL has hardly any of the flaws of communism. GPL haters never cease to amuse me.

Re:

[higuita]

so lets complain about GPL and give zero facts and end using the communist flag... because it is for sure evil (hint, it isn't, don't confuse communism with soviet socialism)
If there are zealots in the GPL side, for sure there are also zealots in the BSD side

and then you end with "Steal other people's content, post it without even looking at it." ... so just like BSD, right?! (yes, i'm trolling you!)

Re:

[sinkskinkshrieks]

Point of support: the Soviets never implemented communism. It was the plan but they never got there and stopped at corrupt and totalitarian Stalinism, much like how China stopped at their own flavor of totalitarianism mixed with socialism, Maoism.

Btw, the Trump Musk duumvirate is attempting to implement "shock and awe" anarcho-libertarianism with flavors of anocracy, kleptocracy, and ochlocracy, which are equally utopian compared to communism and is unstable, corrupt, and inefficient compared to successfu

Re:

[sabbede]

Yes, they did implement Communism. Communism, like all Marxist systems, is totalitarian. Totalitarianism always produces a dictatorship. That's what Communism and Socialism are - totalitarian dictatorships. Try to implement them and you get a dictatorship. Every time.

That's why "democratic socialism" cannot and does not actually exist. Once you've voted in totalitarians, you never get to vote for anyone else.

And before you start listing European nations and calling them socialist, they are not.

Re:

[Zak3056]

GPL is communism.

Sure. But it's voluntary communism, which makes all the difference. No one is forcing you to use GPL software at gunpoint, and no one can appropriate your code unless you purposefully mingle it with GPL and distribute the resulting combined work. The idea that the GPL (at least v2) is somehow harmful is an absurd one and even Microsoft gave up on pushing that narrative a long time ago.

Re:

[martin-boundary]

Trump (and therefore you) is now buddy with Putin, you're about to find out that you actually like communism, that you've always liked communism. Better count your fingers again.

Re:

[znrt]

Trump (and therefore you) is now buddy with Putin, you're about to find out that you actually like communism, that you've always liked communism. Better count your fingers again.

Trump (and therefore you) is now buddy with Putin

no, he isn't.

putin (actually russia (actually most of the planet)) doesn't give a shit about trump nor what he says because he knows full well that no american/western leader can be trusted, promises won't make it anymore and any deal will come with hard facts or simply won't be. but trump has to make good on his bravado of ending the war, which he is powerless to do except by accepting all conditions because russia holds all the aces, so he has to brag about a phone call with putin that was nothing but an

Re:

[null etc.]

GPL is communism

No, GPL is GNU/communism.

Re:

[alexgieg]

GPL is communism.

Hahahahahahaha!

Re:Nawww

[jmccue]

The defining moment(s) of the future of GPL3 happened long ago, when it was rejected by most of the community in favor of either staying with GPL2

The reason it was rejected was due to fortune 500 companies, they want to keep using free labor and keep their bits (enhancements) hidden from us. Just take a peak at Red Had/IBM and what they did to CentOS to see an example of not using the GPLv3. If Linux was on v3, CentOS would still be a thing.

I worked at IBM, the owner of Red Hat, and when I was there, IBM forbade the use of any GPLv3 software on their systems, this includes people using a Linux RHEL Workstation instead of Windows (like I did).

Re:

[Aighearach]

Welcome to Earth, don't forget to sample all the flavors of Earth Sugardrink during you visit.

Re:

[vbdasc]

Google is your friend (well, in most cases it isn't, tbh)

Re: A lie

[simlox]

You a free to choose any license for your code. But if you incorporate other people's code you have to accept their license. And GPL is written to protect the freedom of the end-user, not the corporations wanting to make money from other people's code. A lot of BSD people apparently gets motivated by a lot of corporations using their code, neither paying for it, nor accepting the rights of the user to see, modify etc.. Their choice, they must just accept other won't accept that and not incorporate such code

Re:

[vbdasc]

The copyright holder is also to blame for using a license with ambiguities and contradictions that need to be decided in court. One might even speculate that they deliberately used trollish license to lure unsuspecting parties and sue them maliciously. The court should invalidate their license and force them to use another. This would be a victory for the common sense.

But I agree that SFC's stance is completely irrelevant and stupid.

Re:

[martin-boundary]

Nonsense. If you don't want to use somebody else's code, you don't have to. Write your own code from scratch, and license it anyway you want to. That's what those guys did whose code you're taking for your project - Only to save time, of course, since we all know you're super smart and could totally write it all from scratch if you had to.

Clickbait

[vbdasc]

I personally fail to see how this can affect the future of GPLv3. In this case, we have a developer who publishes software under a hacked GPLv3 (GPLv3 concatenated with some restrictions resulting in a license that is somewhat self-contradictory and hence on a precarious legal standing, but I digress). Whatever happens in the courtroom wouldn't affect the GPLv3 itself in any way.

Even if the court decides that the non-free license the developer uses is not valid, this won't be a victory for free software. The developer will simply move to another non-free license which doesn't piggyback on GPLv3, eliminating the contradiction.

There are some headlines you read

[rsilvergun]

And you just know they're clickbait. You don't even need to read the fucking summary. The future of X hangs in the balance is one of them.

It's because the headline doesn't really tell you anything useful. A proper headline written by a real journalist includes some actual information because the goal of a real journalist is to get information into people's heads.

The goal of a clickbaiter is to keep you scrolling through ads as long as possible. So the less information in the headline and the less in

Re:There are some headlines you read

[Ed Tice]

SFC doesn't do click bait. They put a lot of effort into helping ensure open source license compliance and they do so quietly.

Re:

[vbdasc]

Did anyone claim that SFC was doing click bait?

Re:

[Ed Tice]

The developer is mixing their own code with AGPLv3 and licensing the whole thing under their own license. This isn't about whether you can distribute your own code that way, it's about whether you can remove clauses and redistribute AGPLv3 under the new license.

Re:

[vbdasc]

The developer is mixing their own code with AGPLv3 and licensing the whole thing under their own license[which is more restrictive than AGPLv3].

Whoa, are you sure? I couldn't find such a claim in the linked article. If this is true, then it constitutes a clear and obvious violation of AGPL by the developer, and if the court stands with them, then it would indeed dismantle GPL and terminally cripple the free software movement.

I hope it isn't true, for the sake of everyone on this planet.

Re:

[unrtst]

The developer is mixing their own code with AGPLv3 and licensing the whole thing under their own license[which is more restrictive than AGPLv3].

Whoa, are you sure? I couldn't find such a claim in the linked article. If this is true, then it constitutes a clear and obvious violation of AGPL by the developer, and if the court stands with them, then it would indeed dismantle GPL and terminally cripple the free software movement.

Would it not ALSO cripple all software licensing? If I can alter and amend a license on a copyrighted work and then redistribute it under that new license... WTF was the license doing in the first place? You can't add a restriction to something whose licensing condition is that you do not add additional restrictions without violating that license, and then you're back to plain copyright where you have zero license (that's kinda the point and strength of GPL).

Re:

[Ed Tice]

It would cripple all open source licensing which is why SFC is involved! With commercial software, you have no right to further distribution. With open source licenses you do have a right to further distribution and the argument is being made that one can distribute a combined work under AGPLv3 but add additional restrictions as a *licensor* of other parts of the combined work. This would essentially turn all GPL code into LGPL.

Re:

[Ed Tice]

From TFA: Neo4j further argued (and the lower court agreed) that since 103 did not mention licensors explicitly, then not only must licensors have the right to add “further restrictions” but this implicit right trumped the licensees' explicit right to remove such restrictions under 74.

Re:

[vbdasc]

But if Neo4j used some AGPL code, then they're licensees with respect to it. And 103 does mention licensees explicitly. They CAN'T add restrictions to the product that uses others' AGPL code. They can add their own proprietary code, but according to the AGPL, the whole result needs to be AGPL.

I'll repeat my question: Are you sure that Neo4j uses someone else's AGPLv3 code? Because if they don't use such code, then they're within they right to use whatever license they choose to.

Re:

[Ed Tice]

You don't have to take my word for it. Neo4j has an open source version and a paid commercial version. I don't know where the AGPLv3 comes in here since the open source version is GPLv3 not AGPLv3. And I don't know how they package their enterprise product. But I put the text below from their own repository for you. They are basically saying (as best I can tell, no being a lawyer) that if you execute a commercial license with them, you lose all of your GPL rights. https://github.com/neo4j/neo4j... [github.com] N

Re:

[jriding]

He used bloodhound to find this one

Post TiVo became a utopian fantasy

[sinkskinkshrieks]

Controlling what some people can and can't do isn't freedom. AGPL doubles-down on insanity such that no one serious can ever use it. Code is free to use or it ain't.

Re:

[vbdasc]

AGPL doesn't control what people can and can't do. Nobody is forced to use AGPL, just like nobody is forced to enter in any particular contract.

GPLv3 is crap

[juancn]

It's way too toxic, not even Linux uses it.

I'm more of a true freedom advocate, I like BSD, MIT or Apache much more than even GPLv2, but that one it's still tolerable.