GPL 3 release could slip past March
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New draft of revamped open-source General Public License is due soon, but final release schedule is open, FSF executive director says.
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The latest GNU General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3) software license will officially be released Friday -- but not without some controversy.
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Mark your calendar: November 22. That's the day, barring something unforseen, that OPML 2.0 will move from a draft to a final frozen spec. If you plan to use OPML 2.0, or you're already using it, please set aside a few hours to carefully review the spec, between now and the end of September, or at the latest early October, to be sure it makes sense to you.  We're doing this very slowly and carefully so people will believe in the quality of this spec. If you don't think it's a good spec, now is the time to say why. Speak now or forever hold your peace. You may not like the format, that's not the issue now -- it's the spec we're trying to finalize.  Thanks for your help!
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InfoWorld - The new GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3 is not a fit for Linux because switching would require permission from the kernel&#39;s thousands of de facto owners, a maintainer of the SCSI portion of the kernel said on Thursday. Also, Microsoft released a statement that the company has no GPLv3 obligations.
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Microsoft shot back at the open source community Thursday, saying it would not provide support for software licensed under the GPLv3. The third version of the GPL was officially launched a week ago by the Free Software Foundation.
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Blog: Microsoft wants to declare its independence from one of open source's biggest licenses, the GPL.  Here's why it will fail.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft&#39;s defeat in a European appeals court&#160;Monday has left open-source developers hopeful about the future although still dissatisfied with the company&#39;s compliance with a 3-year-old antitrust ruling.
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The Free Software Foundation will take comments on the newest draft and plans to officially publish the final GPLv3 license on June 29.
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InfoWorld - The Free Software Foundation has released the fourth or &quot;last-call&quot; draft of the third version of its GNU general public license, set a date for its official publication, and laid out reasons why the free and open source software community should adopt GPLv3 sooner rather than later.
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Linux looms large in software shifts in India. Plus: Version 3 of the GPL gets a long-awaited release.
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Microsoft to users: Ignore that press release from earlier this week. Service Pack 3 for Windows XP won't be out until next year.
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Windows XP users interested in trying out the release candidate of Service Pack 3 for the operating system should be able to download the software later today. Be forewarned, it weighs in at 580MB.
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Ziff Davis - Efforts under way to revise the popular GNU General Public License could put additional pressure on Microsoft by the time it tries to push its long-awaited Windows upgrades out the door.
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Linux creator Linus Torvalds, in an interview being made public by the Linux Foundation Tuesday, stressed that version 2 of the GPL (GNU General Public License) still makes the most sense for the Linux kernel over the newer GPL version 3.GPL 3, which was released last year by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), reflects the FSF''s goals while GPL 2 closely matches what Torvalds thinks a license should do, Torvalds said.?"I want to pick the license that makes the most sense for what I want to do. And at this point in time, Version 2 matches what I think we want to do much, much better than Version 3," said Torvalds, who is now a fellow at the foundation. He was interviewed in late-October by Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin.Among GPL 3 highlights are protections against patent infringement lawsuits and provisions for license compatibility. Torvalds acknowledged he had spoken out against GPL 3 before it was released. He had opposed digital rights management provisions in early-2006, calling them burdensome.There could be a change in his stance, though, Torvalds said. GPL 2 basically has acted as a single license covering a huge bulk of source code. Version 3 splits this base with some projects covered by version 2 and others by version 3 or later, he said. Version 3 might be useful if "there ends up being tons of external code that we feel is really important and worthwhile that is under the version 3 license," said Torvalds.He added he cannot change the license on his own anymore. "I mean, because I have accepted code over the last 15 years by people who kind of accepted my original choice of the GPL Version 2, I?m not just, I think, ethically bound by those people?s choices, I am also actually legally bound," Torvalds said.Torvalds also was asked about the Linux development process being centered in North America and Europe despite Linux's now-global reach. Developers, Torvalds said, tend to come from countries with a high density of Internet access. While China and India have a lot of people, they have issues with Internet access, he said.Language and cultural barriers also present an issue. While some Asian countries have huge Internet use and a great deal of education, they do not contribute a lot to the kernel or other open-source projects, said Torvalds. South Americans, meanwhile, may not necessarily speak English but culturally, they are closer to Europe and the U.S., which makes it easier to enter the fray, according to Torvalds.?Asked why the kernel does not have a stable device driver ABI, Torvalds said one reason is that people ask for one but do not want to merge their source code into the stable kernel or the standard kernel."And that, in turn, means that all the people who actually do all the kernel work and maintain the kernel are basically unable to work with that piece of hardware and that vendor because if there are any bugs whatsoever, we can?t fix them," said Torvalds.Commercial vendors have moved away from wanting anything to do with binary drivers because they are not maintainable, he said.Torvalds said Linux started out as a hobby of his, but he has now been working on it full-time for the last four years.
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Ziff Davis - Opinion: eWEEK.com Senior Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols thinks although there will be a bitter battle, there's no way around it: The GPL must be revised.
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The fourth and final draft of version 3 the Gnu Public License is released by the Free Software Foundation. The GPLv3 addresses issues central to the debate over patent protection and undermines further patent-protection agreements.
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Freedom is just another word for $7,000 Comment The folks looking after the general public license (GPL) are fond of portraying themselves as the humble shepherds of the free and open source software movement. Their job, among other things, is to provide an open and transparent means for protecting the freedom to review, copy, tinker with and redistribute code.â¦