Kernel developers declare GPLv3 dangerous!!

[JGuru]

The GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3) draft process took a hit today when a number of prominent kernel developers released a position statement deriding the "dangers and problems" with the GPLv3.

Ten developers have signed their names to the position paper: James Bottomley, Mauro Carvalho Chehab, Thomas Gleixner, Christoph Hellwig, Dave Jones, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Tony Luck, Andrew Morton, Trond Myklebust, and David Woodhouse.

The developers acknowledge the GPLv2 as a catalyst for helping foster the development community that works on the Linux kernel and has made Linux a success over other free operating systems. Due to the success of the GPLv2, the developers state that they are "reluctant to contemplate tampering with that licence except as bug fixes to correct exposed problems or updates counter imminent dangers."

The position statement takes issue with the GPLv3 draft, and says that "there's no substantial and identified problem with GPLv2 that it is trying to solve," while the new draft introduces several problems.

GPLv3 gripes:

In particular, the letter specifies three provisions in the GPLv3 draft that are considered objectionable: the DRM clause, the additional restrictions clause, and the GPLv3 draft's patent provisions.

It's not shocking that the DRM, or "Tivoisation" clauses, are called out by kernel developers as unwanted. Linux creator Linus Torvalds has expressed his distaste for the DRM clauses on several occasions. While the developers agree that the use of DRM is "deeply disturbing," the developers say that "the essential freedoms of section 3 [of the paper] forbids us from ever accepting any licence which contains end use restrictions."

Another concern is the GPLv3's provision to allow additional restrictions above and beyond those in the GPLv3 itself. The developers argue that the ability to choose additional restrictions for the license "makes GPLv3 a pick and choose soup of possible restrictions which is going to be a nightmare for our distributions to sort out legally and get right."

Perhaps most importantly, the paper points out that the GPLv2 promises that future versions of the GPL will be "similar in spirit to the present version." However, the developers say that adding DRM restrictions "is tantamount to co-opting the work of all prior contributions into the service of the FSF's political ends" which is "a fundamental violation of the trust" placed in the FSF to produce future versions of the GPL similar in spirit to the current version.


Read more about it here

[praka123]

huge popularity of Linux kernel made them put these comments as even Linus Torvy himself might have thoguht what a foolish thing he does by GPLing kernel;Linus comments earlier itself shows few immaturity like the way he accuses GNOME and favours KDE,a non-fsf project,Now i feel many of these devels there are also supporting propreitory systems and working as agents for propey companies to unstabilise Open Source Projects...perhaps the solution may be a FORK by some dedicated die hard OSS people as is the case happening with cdrtools as forked to wodim etc..DRM is definitely a BIG sin and a trap for OSS as is the case with patents etc..if they can sue OSS devels,then Y cant they sue a patent owner who is trying to prey innocent devels? anyways i fully supports Mr.Stallman's ideals and ethics...He is the One who will save FSF and Linux.Free must Remain Free Always

[mehulved]

What we don't need at the moment is infighting within the community on ideals. The present is the time when OSS has a good possibility of huge growth, that's where the developers need to focus on rather than waste their brain power in fighting amongst themselves. While saying that it is important that GPL v3 does satisfy developers so that it can be adopted for the good of the whole community and fight can be taken to proprietory softwares.

[JGuru]

GPLv3 is with those objectionable clauses is not the way to go right now. Linux O.S
is poised for a huge growth & this fighting leads to fragmentation. I hope they drop
those clauses which lead to this whole scenario.

[tuxfan]

IMHO, Stallman is somewhat impractical in his approach.

How can you expect a hardware vendor to release the driver source code under GNU/GPL?? That may probably leak out some trade secrets. Harware vendors at times spend millions on R&D! How can they simply reveal all these!! I think they will choose to give Linux a go by rather than loose millions and consequently hardware support in Linux will suffer further! Stallman's ideas at present seems to hinder the progress of OSS!

Anyway, from a software writer's perspective, I really don't agree too much with Stallmans's ideas. Counter-arguments are welcome.

[JGuru]

@Ashish, I read your link and I also fully agree with your point. Being a programmer
myself I can't write software for free & how do I make a living then? From donations??
Yes, some people may donate but that may not be enough for my livelihood.
Free software is good for the society in general; from a programmer's perspective,
he can't live on that(no money)!!
What we really need to do is to divide the O.S into free & not-free. So that free software
is available (with certain limitations) & not-free software is available with some proprietary
software & other high-end applications for which the user needs to pay. This way the company
which makes the software (free & not-free) can make enough money & survive. That's what
a company like Novell, which creates Suse Linux & other products does!!

[Yamaraj]

Free software is a laughable concept. If there's no free food, no free shelter,
no free beer, no free sex ...what exactly warrants free software? The sole
purpose is to get developers working for free. It's pure capitalism disguised as
communism. While the top Free Software(TM) programmers are on payroll of
RedHat, Novell or the like and enjoy salaries and stocks, most of the community
never gets paid for the work.

Does Stallman have plans to provide free food and other necessities to the
programmers working for free? He is a lunatic, and quite good at it. Linus has
experienced the dark side of the GPL, and that explains his strong dislike for
GPLv3.

The day everything else goes free, I'll seriously reconsider the concept of free
software, and viability of the GNU/GPL extremism.