Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[Joshua David Williams]

On 6/18/07, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:

> You probably don't want do design a license without involving a
> competent lawyer.  We don't expect lawyers to write kernel code, either.

True enough, and I realized this when I wrote my initial post, but it's not 
what I wrote so much as the concept. I haven't seen the idea come up in any 
threads, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Open source and free software are clearly two different things, so it doesn't 
make sense that an open source project would use a free software license. The 
FSF has made it very clear that their objectives are very different from 
ours.

The GPLv2 is a great license, but it's not perfect. The FSF recognised several 
of the problems when they introduced the first public draft of v3. Since they 
are heading in an opposite direction from the open source community, I 
believe that we are now facing a clear dividing line between the two camps. 
We cannot cling to the fifteen year-old license forever, expecting to never 
be burnt.

If we can't adopt the GPLv3, it seems obvious to me that we need our own 
solution.

-- 
It's a commonly known fact that most intruders come in through Windows.

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[Carlo Wood]

I think that one of the main problems with the GPLv2 versus
GPLv3 dispute is the discord that it saws between developers
around the world.  Right now, 66% is GPL, 6.5% is LGPL (using
the stats from freshmeat here), 6% BSD, and the rest can
be neglected ;) (see bottom of http://freshmeat.net/stats/)

That means that if someone decides that he wants to write
free software (and license it under the GPL), he can choose
from a large code base.

What those stats don't say, however - is how many people
said "version 2 or later", and how many said "version 2".

If next people start to write software - they might be
forced to use GPLv2 because they want to use other software
that was only version 2. While others will start to write
new software under version 3 (if only because they don't
know better - like 90% of the people who copied the template
with "version 2 or later").

The result is that two seperate groups of software will
start to emerge that cannot use from eachother. And because
both will be consirably large, that is a Bad Thing(tm).

Imho, it is much worse that this seperation of the pool of
open source code will occur than everyone using version 2,
or everyone using version 3, and the effect that that will
have.

Now, writing yet another license for the linux kernel is
therefore NOT the solution - if you get my drift.

-- 
Carlo Wood <carlo@alinoe.com>

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[alan]

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007, Alan Cox wrote:

>> If we can't adopt the GPLv3, it seems obvious to me that we need our own
>> solution.
>
> Its called GPL v2.

Its not the Spirit of the GPLv3 I object to, its the hangover the next 
morning.

Why do I see this horse-shaped hole that people continue to want to hit 
with sticks?

-- 
"ANSI C says access to the padding fields of a struct is undefined.
ANSI C also says that struct assignment is a memcpy. Therefore struct
assignment in ANSI C is a violation of ANSI C..."
                                   - Alan Cox

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[Alan Cox]

> If we can't adopt the GPLv3, it seems obvious to me that we need our own 
> solution.

Its called GPL v2.

Alan

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[Chris Snook]

Joshua David Williams wrote:
> I've been keeping tabs on the GPLv3 dispute for quite some time. It seems to 
> me that the best solution would be for us to write our own open source 
> license - one that would be written specifically to uphold the ten rights in 
> the open source definition.

Your solution for license fragmentation is more license fragmentation?  GPLv2 is 
a damn good license.  If we're going to undertake the arduous task of 
relicensing the kernel, it had better be worth the payoff.  GPLv3 is being 
considered because:

1)	A lot of the GPLv2 code in the kernel was explicitly authorized by the 
contributor to be distributed under future versions of the GPL published by the 
FSF.  This means we only have to go through the headache of getting 
authorization to relicense for a much smaller code base than the whole kernel.

2)	The influence of the FSF and ubiquity of GNU tools means that a large chunk 
of code is going to be released under GPLv3.  This cannot be said for your license.

> I'm not a lawyer

GPLv3 was written by a whole bunch of lawyers, all of them trained and 
experienced to consider the extended ramifications of the precise wording of the 
license in numerous jurisdictions worldwide.  The current draft is already a 
compromise between GPLv2 and earlier GPLv3 drafts.  It's quite possible that the 
kernel will never relicense, and that's okay, because we already have a good 
license, the GPLv2, which was also written by a lawyer.

	-- Chris

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jun 18, 2007, david@lang.hm wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Jun 2007, Joshua David Williams wrote:
>> On 6/18/07, Carlo Wood <carlo@alinoe.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Now, writing yet another license for the linux kernel is
>>> therefore NOT the solution - if you get my drift.
>> 
>> The new license could be written to be compatible with both versions of the
>> GPL.

> no it couldn't

It could.  Just not as part of the same work.  I.e., it wouldn't be
compatible in both directions, so it wouldn't make some of the most
vocal Linux developers in that other thread happy.

But you could achieve one-way compatibility in various ways:

GPLv2+, after GPLv3 is published, and before there's a GPLv4, is
pretty much it.

One could also come up with any license that permits use under the
terms of the GPLv2 or the GPLv3.

One could also dual-license under GPLv2 and GPLv3.

FWIW, IANAL.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member         http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[david]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007, Joshua David Williams wrote:

> On 6/18/07, Carlo Wood <carlo@alinoe.com> wrote:
>
>>  Now, writing yet another license for the linux kernel is
>>  therefore NOT the solution - if you get my drift.
>
> The new license could be written to be compatible with both versions of the
> GPL. IMO, a new license written from the OSS perspective would behoove us
> greatly in that we are no longer subject to this Higher Calling of the FSF
> and the Church of Emacs.

no it couldn't

the GPLv2 says that if you combine it with any other license the result 
must be GPLv2

the GPLv3 says that if you combine it with any other license the result 
must be GPLv3

so you have one requirement saying that the result must be GPLv2 and 
another that says you must be GPLv3. there isn't any way to resolve this 
conflict.

David Lang

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[Joshua David Williams]

On 6/18/07, Carlo Wood <carlo@alinoe.com> wrote:

>  Now, writing yet another license for the linux kernel is
>  therefore NOT the solution - if you get my drift.

The new license could be written to be compatible with both versions of the 
GPL. IMO, a new license written from the OSS perspective would behoove us 
greatly in that we are no longer subject to this Higher Calling of the FSF 
and the Church of Emacs.

$0.02

-- 
It's a commonly known fact that most intruders come in through Windows.

Re: GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[H. Peter Anvin]

Joshua David Williams wrote:
> I'm not a lawyer, and this is fairly rough, but below is my attempt at an 
> initial draft.

You probably don't want do design a license without involving a 
competent lawyer.  We don't expect lawyers to write kernel code, either.

	-hpa

GPLv3 dispute solution - new open source license?

[Joshua David Williams]

I've been keeping tabs on the GPLv3 dispute for quite some time. It seems to 
me that the best solution would be for us to write our own open source 
license - one that would be written specifically to uphold the ten rights in 
the open source definition.

I'm not a lawyer, and this is fairly rough, but below is my attempt at an 
initial draft. It largely resembles the GPLv2, though it differs in several 
key points. I like to refer to the idea as Copyup, because the license gives 
the users extended rights of modification, but does not as go to the extent 
the GPL does to uphold ethical freedoms, so we're sitting 90 degrees between 
the two extremes ;-)

Open Source License
Version 0.1, June 2007

Copyright (C) Joshua David Williams 2007. Everyone is permitted to distribute 
this document, but modification is strictly prohibited.

Preamble

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the use of a program by any means, regardless of ethics and freedom. This 
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this software.

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Hereinafter, each licensee will be addressed as "you", and the copyrighted 
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-- 
It's a commonly known fact that most intruders come in through Windows.