I've been meaning to ask about this since (L)GPL3 was released. The version 3 of the (L)GPL license has numerous benefits: - It's much more legally sound in the rest of the world (IMO one of the most important factors about the new license) - numerous reasons for this e.g. referencing WIPO rather than US laws. - It has an explicit patent agreement (really an extension of the above - (L)GPLv2 has an implicit patent agreement, but this is only valid in the US) - this means that people who contribute to and/or distribute WINE cannot sue WINE (or WINE users) for patent infringement. - It is compatible with the Apache 2.0 license, meaning that there is an even bigger pool of source code to draw from. - It helps ensure that companies cannot prevent people from modifying the source code by providing them explicit legal rights to change the code in these circumstances, and requiring information to allow users to change it. - For LGPL only, It makes 100% sure that GPL+linking exception and LGPL can be combined legally in all jurisdictions by merging them (which is essentially the only real difference, barring slightly different wording in the v2.1 of LGPL vs v2. of GPL) - It prevents patent agreements where only some people are protected. - It provides a mechanism for first-time accidental violations to be 'cured' more easily - ... and lots of other minor changes to improve the validity of the legal status of the license. There are some points not directly related to the license itself that might be of interest: - Samba has decided to become GPL3+ only, as they want the added protections provided by the license. WINE and Samba seem like projects that may potentially wish to share code (a very quick search brings up articles like this http://www.winehq.org/?issue=272), and if WINE sticks to supporting GPLv2+ rather than GPLv3+, then WINE will no longer be able to integrate Samba code. - Solaris may go GPLv3, another potentially useful repository of code to draw from that would not be possible under GPLv2. So as you can see, (L)GPL version 3 has a lot of benefits. It also has broad support (excluding Linus of course, who I must point out objects only to a single clause in the license that can be resolved by adding an extra permission, as GPLv3 permits), including strong corporate backing (e.g. IBM, Red Hat, MySQL, Sun, even Novell). As one of the projects that Microsoft would most like to destroy, the added protections in this updated version of the license would seem even more valuable. Kind regards, Ian Macfarlane ps: As a last note to Damjan - all GPL versions have been considered both radical and political when they were released. In retrospect, the protections that they provided have been considered invaluable.
On 7/13/07, Ian Macfarlane <ian(a)ianmacfarlane.com> wrote:
I've been meaning to ask about this since (L)GPL3 was released.
I'd also like to weigh in on my reasons for liking the (L)GPLv3. The termination clause is clarified and a grace period added for compliance. As it stands right now, if someone was to inadvertently not adhere to the terms of a (L)GPLv2 program an over zealous major contributor could revoke distribution rights downstream to the offender even if the offender was in the process of trying to remedy the situation. It may only be a technicality but this bothers me. When corporate powers, with their own motives of profit outweigh commitment to FreeSoftware, are major contributors all the loopholes have to be closed. Imagine a world where SCO had contributed a lot of (L)GPL code and then they had gotten lucky to find a technicality in the license to revoke it for everyone. -- Steven Edwards "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo
Ian Macfarlane wrote:
- Samba has decided to become GPL3+ only, as they want the added protections provided by the license. WINE and Samba seem like projects that may potentially wish to share code (a very quick search brings up articles like this http://www.winehq.org/?issue=272), and if WINE sticks to supporting GPLv2+ rather than GPLv3+, then WINE will no longer be able to integrate Samba code. This point is actually moot. Samba is GPL and Wine is LGPL. I don't see v3 having changed something in regard to that. If Wine wants to use Samba code it has to ask the people that own the copyright to relicense their work.
bye michael -- Michael Stefaniuc Tel.: +49-711-96437-199 Sr. Network Engineer Fax.: +49-711-96437-111
On Friday 13 July 2007 18:23:32 Michael Stefaniuc wrote:
Ian Macfarlane wrote:
- Samba has decided to become GPL3+ only, as they want the added
protections provided by the license. WINE and Samba seem like projects that may potentially wish to share code (a very quick search brings up articles like this http://www.winehq.org/?issue=272), and if WINE sticks to supporting GPLv2+ rather than GPLv3+, then WINE will no longer be able to integrate Samba code.
This point is actually moot. Samba is GPL and Wine is LGPL. I don't see v3 having changed something in regard to that. If Wine wants to use Samba code it has to ask the people that own the copyright to relicense their work.
Yes, I'm afraid I have to agree here. Samba<->Wine cooperation on the code level is hampered by licensing issues anyway. However, even though this point is not valid, the other points certainly are. For what it's worth, switching to the LGPLv3 gets a +1 from me. Unless someone can come up with a scenario where the LGPLv3 would actually be harmful, let's switch. Cheers, Kai -- Kai Blin WorldForge developer http://www.worldforge.org/ Wine developer http://wiki.winehq.org/KaiBlin Samba team member http://www.samba.org/samba/team/ -- Will code for cotton.
participants (4)
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Ian Macfarlane -
Kai Blin -
Michael Stefaniuc -
Steven Edwards