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Linux-Watch asks: "Where, Oh Where, Is GPLv3?," which was originally scheduled to be out in May 2005. A need to draft language in response to the MSFT-NOVL deal is the excuse d'jour, but there are actually a slew of other issues outstanding -- DRM; patents; dynamic linking; web services, are the biggies.
As any follower of this blog knows, there is a gulf between our view of the world and Larry Lessig's, but he made a shrewd point in a blog entry last September:
The real challenge here will be Richard Stallman’s. His work helped launch important movements of freedom — free software, most directly; free culture, through inspiration, and examples such as Wikipedia. It also helped launch a movement he’s not happy about, the Open Source Software Movement. Much of the latter builds on the former. And these movements have been joined by many who share his values, some more, some less. (Again, see Torvalds). These movements have built much more than he, or any one person, could ever have done. So his challenge is whether he evolves these licenses in ways that fit his own views alone, recognizing those views deviate from many important parts of the movement he started. Or whether he evolves these licenses to support the communities they have enabled. This is not a choice of principle vs compromise. It is a choice about what principle should govern the guardians of these licenses. An oddity of the whole process is that the drafting is very closed, with the Free Software Foundation keeping a firm grip on the pencil. New drafts are circulating, say the players, but they have not been leaked to the Internet. (Some cynical souls might find this fortress mentality amusing.)
It is far from clear that the new version will recognize the multiple communities that have sprung up around the GPL, and especially around Linux. It may be pretty much slanted toward the free software side, and, as a commenter on the Lessig blog entry noted:
In particular, the core of the debate is here: “Or whether he evolves these licenses to support the communities they have enabled.”
As has been said above, the Free Software community which has been enabled is being supported. It is not the same as the Open Source community.
Free Software is a moral viewpoint. Open Source is a business model.
THESE ARE NOT THE SAME!
Current projection from Linux-Watch:
It now appears that there may be one more draft of the GPLv3 before the final version is released. [Sources believe] that the next draft should appear on or immediately before its annual associate member and activist meeting March 27 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
posted by James DeLong @ 8:19 AM | Software
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