Ingo Molnar wrote: > and that's where the GPLv3 errs: it arbitrarily attempts to "define" > some work that can _easily_ be completely separate from the GPL-ed > work to be under the scope of "source code". Well thanksfuly the last draft doesn't and puts keys and other such stuff under "installation information¹". Which does not mean they may not in fact be some sort of derived object, but I find the new language makes the license intent much clearer. And that's the primary objective of a license text. Yes the technical wording is important too, but a judge does not expect the technical wording to be perfect or time-proof, so if you focus on technicalities you get to argue on broken technicalities later because there is not clear intent for the court to rule on. Some would say other parts of the last GPLv3 draft forgot this and focused on technicalities over making the intent clear, and I wouldn't disagree. But the DRM bit has been controversial enough its current re-wording is quite good IMHO. This may be anathema to many on this list but I don't actually care about the original code author well being. I've done my share of contributions to FLOSS projects (in code, testing, money, etc) but I've no illusion the number of projects I've contributed to will be dwarfed by the number of projects I'll use in my everyday-life. So to me software licenses and the various GPL versions are primarily user-enabling tools. You'll note the GPL v2 doesn't particularly care about the original software author either. Source code (and various peripheral bits Alan cares about) must be made available to the end user, not the original code author. It worked out this user was often the original author, or if not said user had an incentive to retransmit the modifications to the original author. But he can choose to have someone else work on the source code without involving original upstream in any way, and the license is fine with that. In fact that is what happens when there is a rift in a project and both parties go working on their own fork. So contrarily to what many people wrote on this list the payback for GPL-ing some code is not access to modifications of this code but maintaining an open technical environment. You increase the FLOSS pool size, you increase the chance the software you use in your everyday life is FLOSS and open to changes. Either changes you do yourself or most often changes someone else made and you download somewhere (because everyone is not a software god, and even those who are will never have the time to fix themselves all the software they interact with²). When you get this software with or for some hardware you care about deploying the changes on hardware you have (usually the same hardware you go the software with) Another way to describe this open technical environment is an environment with no vendor lock-in. For a very long time the GPLv2 served this purpose admirably. Unfortunately nowadays the standalone general-purpose open PC is not playing such a big part in everyday life, and we've been invaded by embedded computers. What's worse the manufacturers of those computers are control-freaks and making changes to the software of those computers is no longer just a matter of having code access. Lastly there is a definite temptation to re-make the PC on their image and add installation controls on it too. Therefore the GPLv2 is not sufficient to this end anymore and something like GPLv3 is necessary. The environment changed. Being able to install is no longer a given but something protected by law you have to explicitely require (yes require, the industry is perfectly able to fuck-itself up collectively for years if let alone, just look at the HDDVD/Blue-ray debacle). What use is the source code of a mobile app to me if the mobile industry decides to lock all the mobiles sold with a DRM lock? Now it could be many people on this list don't care about end users, think only the hardware people/software people relations matter, and are quite happy with the perspective of an environment restricted to a technical elite. In which case I suppose a lot of users are going to revisit their FLOSS over freeware bias in the next years, and we'll find out the exact weight of development in the FLOSS ecosystem. ¹ Information clearly does not mean shipping users all sorts of physical tools to change the hardware, just the knowledge necessary to install stuff ² Rockbox is a terrific example of Free Software logic in action in the embedded space outside technical circles, and would probably be the first casualty of DRM extensions -- Nicolas Mailhot
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