What's all the fuss about GPL 3.0 ?

[Bragador]

I know it's related to tivo in some way. People are pissed and Linus said he wouldn't put the linux kernel under the 3rd version of the GPL.

The thing is, I don't really understand the difference between 2.0 and 3.0 right now.

Anybody got it right ?

And if 3.0 is supposed to be more "free" and "open", will it be the end of our beloved linux if it's not licensed under 3.0 ?

[Sirin]

I know it's related to tivo in some way. People are pissed and Linus said he wouldn't put the linux kernel under the 3rd version of the GPL.

The thing is, I don't really understand the difference between 2.0 and 3.0 right now.

Anybody got it right ?

And if 3.0 is supposed to be more "free" and "open", will it be the end of our beloved linux if it's not licensed under 3.0 ?

No, it will be exactly as it is today. ;)

[Brunellus]

what happens to software that is licenced 'AT YOUR OPTION, ANY LATER VERSION' of the GPL?

[poofyhairguy]

What's all the fuss about GPL 3.0 ?

It has provisions to battle DRM and "Trusted Computing." Linus does not seem to like it because he thinks (and I unfortunatly agree) that DRM is the future and that if Linux can't play along then Linux will no longer be relevent....

[TrendyDark]

What's all the fuss about GPL 3.0 ?

It has provisions to battle DRM and "Trusted Computing." Linus does not seem to like it because he thinks (and I unfortunatly agree) that DRM is the future and that if Linux can't play along then Linux will no longer be relevent....

I think the Stallman and the crew put that provision in there to keep open source software developers and distributors from using DRM, not more so to completely say "we hate you DRM". After all that hype about Sony RootKit and stuff, it's not surprising in my eyes.

DRM is, unfortunately, the future if you think of it in terms of proprietary software protecting their products.

[ssam]

What's all the fuss about GPL 3.0 ?

It has provisions to battle DRM and "Trusted Computing." Linus does not seem to like it because he thinks (and I unfortunatly agree) that DRM is the future and that if Linux can't play along then Linux will no longer be relevent....

i think the argument is more like: you can't fight DRM by saying "no DRM on linux" you have to do it by changing who you get your music and films from.

if linux went GPL3 (in its current draft state), then it does not stop people running something like iTunes on top of it. and if you found a way at the kernel level to make DRM imposible on linux then people who wanted iTunes would run windows.

the real way to get rid of DRM is to stop buying it. its not really a kernel licencing issue. the real answer is things like magnatunes and cdbaby, and going to gigs of local bands and buying their cds.

i think linus like to say things in a way that starts discussion/flame wars. its possibly part of the LKML style. look at the stuff with his gnome comments.

[Qrk]

Its more just that people listen to Linus' comments. He doesn't hate Gnome anymore than any red (or blue) blooded KDE fan. People just listen to him whereas they tune all of the other Gnome vs KDE comments out.

[handy]

Polarisation sucks!

I never thought that grey would become my favourite colour.

[SuperDiscoMachine V.5.7-3]

What's all the fuss about GPL 3.0 ?

It has provisions to battle DRM and "Trusted Computing."

No, it hasn't.
First, because the GPL 3.0 simply does not exist right now. What's there is a first draft that is meant for public review and discussion.
Second, the goal of the provisions about drm in the draft is not an all out battle against drm, but to simply make sure the drm can not be used to make free software unfree. This is of course exactly the goal the gpl2 also tries to achieve, but only now drm has to be taken into account.



Linus does not seem to like it because he thinks (and I unfortunatly agree) that DRM is the future and that if Linux can't play along then Linux will no longer be relevent....
Not really.
He thinks that this is not the right way to battle drm, but than again, he is wrong about battling drm being the goal of the gpl 3.0 draft anyway.

[Sirin]

Heh. THe creator of Linux vs the community. I've GOTTA see how this turns out. :)

[imagine]

As already pointed out, there's no GPL version 3, there's only a draft for it. And the whole reason why this draft exists is that people can discuss about it, including Linus Torvalds.
Besides, Torvalds never ruled out GPLv3, that was just what the media reported. He wrote that the differences between the GPLv2 and the draft of the GPLv3 aren't very important to the Linux kernel, that he personally doesn't like some of those changes and that it is hard to change the license of the complete Linux kernel anyway.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/2/1/377

That draft is not about forbidding DRM anyway, it is there to prevent that DRM is used to make free software unfree. With the help of DRM it would otherwise be possible to prevent people from modifying and redistributing software even if it were opensource and they had access to that code.

[Bragador]

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0601.3/0559.html


The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some
individual files are licenceable under v3, but not the kernel in general.

And quite frankly, I don't see that changing. I think it's insane to
require people to make their private signing keys available, for example.
I wouldn't do it. So I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to
happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my
code. says Linus