GPL v3 consultation

by Rowan Wilson on 28 July 2006 , last updated 21 November 2007

Archived This page has been archived. Its content will not be updated. Further details of our archive policy.

Introduction

This document has been archived because the consultation process has now been completed. Please see our GPL v3 - What’s New? document.

Since its release in 1991 the GNU GPL (General Public License) v2 has become the most widely used open source licence in the world. It covers over fifty thousand software projects, representing over seventy percent of the total. Why is it so popular? Many would argue that it is its innovative approach to protecting the openness or freedom of the software it covers that continues to make it the licence of choice for so much open source software. Essentially the GPL demands, in return for the rights to modify and distribute the software that it grants, that all distributed copies be covered by the GPL too. By preventing a recipient from choosing their own licence when redistributing, the GPL ensures that the program remains available in a state that freely allows modification and thus improvement. In this way the GPL is designed to promote the development and sharing of well-designed software.

The need for change

The fifteen years from 1991 to 2006 have seen a gigantic expansion in both the role and functionality of computing systems in our society. Despite this enormous shift in context, the GPL v2 remains an extraordinarily successful licence. The Free Software Foundation, the organisation which drafted the licence, also handles the pursuit of those who violate it. Since 1991 they have yet to fail in bringing a violator to account, by insisting that they either cease distributing in a voluntary manner or by fixing the problem that caused the violation.

Despite this extraordinary run of success, the Free Software Foundation has become increasingly concerned that advances in technology were beginning to facilitate new ways in which the intentions of the licence could be circumvented. Companies spring up daily which use adapted GPL-licensed software to provide an internet service for a fee. These companies receive immense benefits from the existence of the open source community while contributing none of their own modifications back to it. The GPL v2 made no objection to this practice because the sale of software-based services was in its infancy in 1991 when it was drafted. In addition to these problems, there are many instances in which the wording of GPL v2 has lead to confusion as to its intentions. In part this is due to the fact that the licence - although drafted to conform to US law - is used worldwide. Finally there is the issue of compatibility; one of the beauties of open source software development is that, with the source code at your fingertips, you can combine code from more than one source to achieve the effect you want. Unfortunately the strict wording of the GPL v2 meant that this was often less easy than it ought to be, with code obtained under a different open source licence being effectively impossible to amalgamate with GPL v2-licensed code not for technological but for legal reasons. A new version of the licence would be needed to deal with these issues, and in late 2005 the Free Software Foundation announced that they intended to publish a third version of the licence by the end of 2006.

GNU General Public License v3 consultation

The GPL v2 had been written by only two people: Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen. To better suit the spirit of collaboration that the GPL was intended to embody, and to reflect the reality that such a popular licence has many, many interested parties, the GPL v3 drafting process involves more than two people. In fact, anyone who wants to help can do so, by using the Free Software Foundation’s collaborative commenting system. Comments on the draft made on the site (and via other methods such as email) are collected together by committees of interested individuals from the overlapping worlds of open source and industry. The committees do not in themselves hold any power; their purpose is to aggregate similar comments into general issues for consideration by Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen, who will write successive drafts based upon the issues raised.

On 17 January 2006 the first discussion draft of GPL v3 was released. Thousands of comments were received in the initial consultation process. On 27 July 2006 the second discussion draft was released, incorporating changes prompted by comments so far. On 28 March 2007 a third discussion draft was released.

You can read the current draft and add your comments: [http://gplv3.fsf.org/] .

There are also useful documents provided by the Free Software Foundation that present the rationale behind the changes betweeen the second and third draft [http://gplv3.fsf.org/rationale].

GPL and LGPL

In addition to the GPL, the Free Software Foundation provides a less restrictive licence known as the Lesser General Public License (LGPL). This licence is intended to be used on software which the author wishes to remain open and free, but which they would also like to be useable and distributable with non-free software. As such it is essentially a series of additional rights granted over and above those granted by the full GPL.

Simultaneously with the release of the second discussion draft of GPL v3, the Free Software Foundation has released a first draft of a new version of the LGPL for discussion. One of the changes that was introduced between v2 and v3 of the GPL was the ability to include additional grants of rights within the licence, and the LGPL has now been reframed as just such a plugin grant-list to the GPL.

Where to next?

The consultation on GPL v3 is ongoing, the third draft will be available for comment for sixty days from the date of publication. This will be followed by a last call draft, which will be available for comment for 30 days. This will be followed by the final license.

As with any new licence, careful analysis of the terms and conditions is essential. There is no doubt that GPL v3 will have a huge role to play in the future of free and open source software. But perhaps even more significant is the amount of effort put into this consultation process to allow as much input from as many sources as possible. Ultimately this may set a marker for openness that other licence writers will need to match.

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