Was catching up on email/news today...
in the Good Morning Silicon Valley blog
[http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/] I saw an interesting post
-----copied from gmsv-----
Insert bad "GNU and improved" pun here The Free Software Foundation
(FSF) released the first public draft of the GNU General Public License
3.0 <http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft> on Monday, one that the organization
hopes will bring new clarity and value to the popular license for free
software
<http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2006/0,4814,107800,00.html>. The
first significant revision of the general public license in 14 years,
GPL 3 extends license compatibility to other open source licenses,
prevents GPL code from being used in digital-rights-management schemes
<http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70028-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_2>
and contains provisions preventing commercial firms from imposing unfair
patent restrictions on open source software.
Interestingly, the main revisions in GPL 3 seem prompted not so much by
advances in technology, but by a commercialization of software that
undermines users' rights. "The concern of the GPL is not the particulars
of technology but the maintenance of users' freedoms," the FSF argues in
its rationale document for GPL 3 <http://gplv3.fsf.org/rationale>. "To
be sure, technological developments of the past 15 years have enabled
new freedoms and have resulted in new threats to freedom. No fundamental
change in computer technology has occurred that requires a radical
change to our license, however. ... Although the concerns of business
have never been our main priority, we do make one observation on this
subject. For us, there has never been any inconsistency between
protecting users' freedom and enabling the commercial use of software.
Whatever doubts may have existed in 1991, we have shown since then that
a copyleft license, a license designed for durable protection of user
freedom, can form the basis of a larger set of commercially useful
software than any non-copyleft free software license has ever produced.
Although business concerns are secondary to freedom, it is important
that the GNU GPL enable business to succeed while respecting freedom,
and we do not intend to interfere with the synergy between them."
Posted by John Paczkowski at 06:37 AM
----------
thought it was interesting--- haven't had time to read the whole thing
on fsf.org yet, but from the summary-- blocking use in DRM schemes alone
could have some interesting side effects... some good side effects...
Justin Gedge
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