Richard Stallman, author of the most radical and durable license for free-software developers, is updating the GNU Public License for the first time since 1991.
Stallman released a draft of GPL Version 3 at a conference at MIT here Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Among other things, the new version contains provisions barring GPL code from being used in digital-rights-management schemes, and restricting the patent rights coders can claim in their GPL-licensed programs.
"The world has sprung very nasty threats on us and our software," said Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation.
The new GPL "ensures that the software it covers will neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden," according to the preamble to the GPLv3 draft.
Additionally, the license "makes it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all," the preamble reads.
The original GPL was based upon Stallman's principal of "copyleft" -- which turns the idea of a copyright on its head by prohibiting anyone from adding new restrictions to GPL-licensed code.
Thus developers who release their software under GPL are able to make it freely available without fear of its appropriation by commercial interests unwilling to share with others. Since its release in 1991, GPLv2 has leveled the playing field for developers by protecting them from corporate bullying, and fostering the environment of intellectual freedom that led directly to such widely used open-source projects as the GNU/Linux operating system.
But developers are being threatened by corporations seeking exclusive control of an array of technologies, said Stallman and others at the first Conference on GPLv3.
Among the looming dangers: an increased use of software patents (which Stallman called "a disastrous thing") and the spread of digital-rights-management schemes (which the Free Software Foundation prefers to call "handcuffware").
Stallman and FSF board member and attorney Eben Moglen crafted the GPLv3 draft to discourage what they called the "perversion of free software" that would occur if GPL-licensed code were included in DRM encryption software.
The GPLv3 draft also includes new and updated provisions addressing remote services and enforcement mechanisms. The draft will be debated in the coming year at follow-up international conferences and in committees and online discussion groups.
Moglen noted that the draft is long and complex -- but insisted the complexity was no more than what's needed to ensure protections for the license holder. He said the patent provision in the GPLv3 draft is merely a starting point for discussions about how the free-software movement should address software patents.
The patent threat in the United States is very serious. Microsoft, for example, recently won a patent ruling for its FAT file system format, which many systems use to organize data on removable media. If Microsoft chooses to seek royalties for its patent, it could quash the distribution of Linux operating systems because they support FAT, Stallman said in an interview before the conference.
GPLv2 has been so easily understood and so easy to defend in and out of court that its legal challengers have invariably come off as either crazy or unforgivably greedy.
The litigious SCO Group has thus far failed to win judicial support for its claim that the free-software license is unconstitutional and unenforceable. And in November, the Free Software Foundation won the dismissal of a case brought by an Indiana man claiming that the GPL amounted to illegal price fixing. A modified complaint in the case is pending.
Its legal rigor has also made GPL a critical tool in the open-source community.
Even so, Stallman insisted that his free-software movement and organizations like the Open Source Initiative have important differences. Stallman only agreed to an interview with Wired News ahead of Monday's announcement after receiving assurances that this report would differentiate "free software" from "open-source software."
Political differences and bad blood are at the heart of the tensions between the movements, said open-source movement leader Bruce Perens, co-founder of the Open Source Initiative and a vice president at the software company SourceLabs.
"Richard is concerned that open source places an emphasis on pragmatic issues and not on freedom as the free-software campaign does," Perens said.
But Perens sees important common goals between the open-source and free-software movements. He also said he expected GPLv3 will help to address some of the problems affecting open-source developers.
Stallman released a draft of GPL Version 3 at a conference at MIT here Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Among other things, the new version contains provisions barring GPL code from being used in digital-rights-management schemes, and restricting the patent rights coders can claim in their GPL-licensed programs.
"The world has sprung very nasty threats on us and our software," said Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation.
The new GPL "ensures that the software it covers will neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden," according to the preamble to the GPLv3 draft.
Additionally, the license "makes it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all," the preamble reads.
The original GPL was based upon Stallman's principal of "copyleft" -- which turns the idea of a copyright on its head by prohibiting anyone from adding new restrictions to GPL-licensed code.
Thus developers who release their software under GPL are able to make it freely available without fear of its appropriation by commercial interests unwilling to share with others. Since its release in 1991, GPLv2 has leveled the playing field for developers by protecting them from corporate bullying, and fostering the environment of intellectual freedom that led directly to such widely used open-source projects as the GNU/Linux operating system.
But developers are being threatened by corporations seeking exclusive control of an array of technologies, said Stallman and others at the first Conference on GPLv3.
Among the looming dangers: an increased use of software patents (which Stallman called "a disastrous thing") and the spread of digital-rights-management schemes (which the Free Software Foundation prefers to call "handcuffware").
Stallman and FSF board member and attorney Eben Moglen crafted the GPLv3 draft to discourage what they called the "perversion of free software" that would occur if GPL-licensed code were included in DRM encryption software.
The GPLv3 draft also includes new and updated provisions addressing remote services and enforcement mechanisms. The draft will be debated in the coming year at follow-up international conferences and in committees and online discussion groups.
Moglen noted that the draft is long and complex -- but insisted the complexity was no more than what's needed to ensure protections for the license holder. He said the patent provision in the GPLv3 draft is merely a starting point for discussions about how the free-software movement should address software patents.
The patent threat in the United States is very serious. Microsoft, for example, recently won a patent ruling for its FAT file system format, which many systems use to organize data on removable media. If Microsoft chooses to seek royalties for its patent, it could quash the distribution of Linux operating systems because they support FAT, Stallman said in an interview before the conference.
GPLv2 has been so easily understood and so easy to defend in and out of court that its legal challengers have invariably come off as either crazy or unforgivably greedy.
The litigious SCO Group has thus far failed to win judicial support for its claim that the free-software license is unconstitutional and unenforceable. And in November, the Free Software Foundation won the dismissal of a case brought by an Indiana man claiming that the GPL amounted to illegal price fixing. A modified complaint in the case is pending.
Its legal rigor has also made GPL a critical tool in the open-source community.
Even so, Stallman insisted that his free-software movement and organizations like the Open Source Initiative have important differences. Stallman only agreed to an interview with Wired News ahead of Monday's announcement after receiving assurances that this report would differentiate "free software" from "open-source software."
Political differences and bad blood are at the heart of the tensions between the movements, said open-source movement leader Bruce Perens, co-founder of the Open Source Initiative and a vice president at the software company SourceLabs.
"Richard is concerned that open source places an emphasis on pragmatic issues and not on freedom as the free-software campaign does," Perens said.
But Perens sees important common goals between the open-source and free-software movements. He also said he expected GPLv3 will help to address some of the problems affecting open-source developers.