Free Software Foundation to unveil new GPL Version 3

Computerworld - After several years of debate and more than 18 months of sometimes passionate public comments and revisions, the latest GNU General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3) software license will officially be released Friday by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

Now the question becomes how GPLv3 will be viewed and accepted in the free software and open-source development communities -- and whether developers will adopt it in their works to replace GPL Version 2. GPLv2 was released in 1991 when the open-source and free software development worlds were very different places.

The key changes in GPLv3 include the following:

• Compatibility with Version 2.0 of the Apache Software License, making it easier for developers to bundle Apache applications with their GPLv3-licensed software without inherent license conflicts, which is often a problem today.
• The inclusion of language to address the controversial cross-licensing and co-development deal last November between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux division, in which Novell agreed to pay Microsoft a percentage of revenue from open-source products, and Microsoft agreed to waive patent claims against users of SUSE Linux. The GPLv3 language says that software companies that "make discriminatory patent deals ... may not convey software under GPLv3. Novell is not prohibited from distributing this software because the patent protection [it] arranged with Microsoft last November can be turned against Microsoft to the community's benefit," according to a FSF statement.
• Prohibitions against the use of GPLv3-licensed software in consumer devices that would prevent users from having freedom of choice in using the software and device. For example, a television-recording device that uses GPL-licensed software but stops working if a user tries to change its embedded code to improve the machine's performance would not be permissible under GPLv3. Such a prohibition on what the FSF calls "Tivoization" is not available under the existing GPLv2.

The GPL is the world's most widely used free software license today, according to the group. The inclusion of language related to the Microsoft-Novell deal added controversy to the task of updating the GPL. Some members in the open-source software development community challenged the action, while Richard M. Stallman, founder and president of the FSF and creator of the GNU Project -- and a longtime advocate of free software -- said that addition is critically important.

"The Novell-Microsoft deal shows how Microsoft intends to use software patents to attack our community" by forcing users to pay fees to use free software, Stallman said. "We don't want that to happen. If Microsoft can make people pay for permission, it wouldn't be free software anymore, so we will undertake ways to block such deals.