GPLv3--a bridge too far?
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Blog: Is version 3 of the GNU General Public License asking for too much?
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How far is too far when it comes to the freedom of software? Plus: Palm slipping, Windows sliding.
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With the release of HIT Lab NZ's OSGART (OpenSceneGraph + ARToolKit) framework imminent, I'm pleased to announce a release of the GPL-licensed ARToolKit v2.   Download ARToolKit 2.72 at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=116280  ARToolKit 2.72 contains a number of improvements over previous releases, with several of these focussed on the video capture libraries. Wayne Piekarski and Hartmut Seichter have substantially updated the Linux video input and added Pointgrey and Gstreamer video capture.  Those of you trying to integrate ARToolKit's coordinate system with existing OpenGL drawing will be pleased to see versions of the OpenGL projection and modelview matrix creation functions which now return right-hand coordinate systems.  Integration with OpenSceneGraph is the focus of our current and future work in the area of advanced graphics capabilities atop ARToolKit. However, this release also updates libARvrml so that it binds correctly to the recently updated OpenVRML 0.16.1.  There are a number of smaller improvements, bug fixes and reference documentation updates included. Please download the release and have a look at the readme and changelog.  We have also added more explicit direction on ARToolKit licensing to the Readme. Please be aware that the GPL-licensed ARToolKit cannot be used in a closed-source product. Closed-source licenses to ARToolKit Professional are available from ARToolworks in return for financial support of ARToolKit development efforts.  If you find bugs in this GPL release, please post in ARToolKit's bug tracker on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=116280&atid=674305. This is the preferred forum for bug reports. Patch submissions are also welcomed.  And yes, bugs fixes and other improvements are available between official ARToolKit releases by checking out the source from Sourceforge ARToolKit CVS repository using anonymous CVS. A simple tutorial on how to get the ARToolKit source using a CVS GUI tool is at http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=25731&group_id=116280.  Thanks to all the contributors to this release.  Philip Lamb HIT Lab NZ
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rPath linux has issued an update to their packages for PHP, PHP-MySQL and PHP-PGSql to correct issues that could make it possible for a remote user to gain unauthorized access.   his fixes some vulnerabilities, where some have unknown impacts and others can be exploited by malicious users to bypass certain security restrictions or by malicious people to potentially compromise a vulnerable system.   References and links to the update information can be found in their original advisory.
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(InfoWorld) - A controversial update to the GNU GPL (General Public License) is set to be released Friday by the Free Software Foundation, a representative of the organization said on Tuesday. GPL version 3 is arriving 16 years after version 2 of the license for open-source software. Questions remain, however, about who exactly will adopt it. Among improvements is a copyright technology not found anywhere in the world with the goal of providing uniformity in different jurisdictions, said Brett Smith, licensing compliance engineer for the foundation. "There's a lot of copyright laws that talk about distribution, but they don't mean the same thing," in different places, he said. "Now, GPL talks about propagation and conveying," Smith said. With this new provision, the terms are the same everywhere worldwide, he said. Version 3 also works to ensure that users can modify software installed on personal computers or in household devices. If software is conveyed inside a device, users must be given enough information so they can modify the software in the device, Smith said. An explicit patent provision in GPL 3 means people who contribute to free software cannot sue users for patent infringement, Smith said. This was not clear in the GPL previously. "This will make sure it's very clear and works across the board," he said. Microsoft and Novell recently forged an agreement not to sue each other's customers over patent issues. The foundation in version 3 provides what has been described as "patent-insurance" in response to the Microsoft-Novell arrangement. GPL 3 also spells out requirements for license compatibility. In May, the Foundation expressed intentions to iron out incompatibilities with other open-source licenses such as the Apache license. With this provision, users can copy Apache-licensed code into GPL projects, said analyst Stephen O'Grady of RedMonk. "For a variety of folks, that's a big deal," O'Grady said. Whether to actually migrate to GPL 3 is a developer decision, Smith said. At Digium, which produces the Asterisk open-source telephony platform, no decision has been made yet, said Mark Spencer, chairman and CTO of Digium. "There are some complications around the patent terms that place some additional requirements upon the developers and distributors that we need to fully understand in more detail," Spencer said. Patent provisions add uncertainty about being able to distribute software covered by someone else's patent, he said. But GPL 3 has its merits, he noted. "GPL version 3 does clean up a lot of things about the GPL that were sort of implicit in previous and become much more explicit here," such as how the GPL interacts with other licenses, Spencer said. Sun has expressed the possibility of offering its Solaris OS under the GPL 3. The Linux kernel has been offered under the GPL previously. Novell, Microsoft, and the Linux Foundation deferred comment on Tuesday until the actual release of the license. The FSF has published an essay by FSF President Richard Stallman in which he argues for the benefits of GPL version 3. âThe reason to migrate is because of the existing problems which GPLv3 will fix, such as 'tivoization,' DRM, and threats from software patents. Further advantages of GPLv3 include better internationalization, gentler termination, support for BitTorrent, and compatibility with the Apache license," Stallman said in a statement released by the foundation in May. Tivoization, which refers to Tivo's software, is when computer appliances feature GPL-covered code that cannot be changed because the appliance will shut down. Actual impacts of GPL version 3 could take a year or more to gauge, said Doug Levin, CEO of Black Duck Software, which offers a software compliance management platform. "Right now, it appears there will only be a small number of projects that will adopt the license," but that could change, Levin said.
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Boomshakalaka A GNU General Public License (GPL) test case in the US looks dead in the water after a start-up promised to abide by the GPLv2 rather than duke it out in court with the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).â¦
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Microsoft is applying for a patent for an operating system that starts out crippled.  You must pay to do things like take the throttle off network speed, disk access, install drivers, install software, and more.  Trust me, I rarely even visit Groklaw, even if this is my second consecutive blog entry with a link to a Groklaw article. My VarLinux.org readers posted the article, A Brave New Modular World, and I had to share it.
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Ziff Davis - It's been 14 years since major changes have been made to the GNU General Public License, and there is a need for a new version; however, there will be significant challenges, claims FSF's Eben Moglen.
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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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(InfoWorld) - The Free Software Foundation has released the fourth or "last-call" 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. The GPL gives users the right to freely study, copy, modify, reuse, share, and redistribute software. Created by Richard Stallman in 1989 for the GNU free operating system project, the license was last fully revised 16 years ago as GPLv2. Besides releasing the fourth draft of GPLv3 on Thursday, the FSF also published an essay by Stallman extolling the benefits of moving from GPLv2 to GPLv3. The new license deals with issues that have emerged recently, notably the patent-licensing deal around Suse Linux struck between Novell and Microsoft in November. Parts of the Linux operating system including its kernel are licensed under GPLv2. Earlier this month, Microsoft executives created a firestorm of protest in the open source community when they asserted that Linux and other open source softwareÂ infringe on 235 of the software vendor's patents. "Microsoft made a fewÂ mistakes in the Novell-Microsoft deal, andÂ GPLv3 is designed to turn them against Microsoft, extending that limited patent protection to the whole community," Stallman wrote. "In order to take advantage of this, programs need to use GPLv3." Software distributors who make discriminatory patent deals after March 28, 2007, may not pass on to others software covered under GPLv3. Ultimately, the FSF would like to do away with software patents altogether but realizes that is currently impossible, aiming instead with GPLv3 to ensure free software can't be made proprietary through patents, according to Stallman. GPLv3 also deals with what Stallman terms "tivoization" or computers containing software covered by the license that can't be changed as well as DRM, or digital rights management, which the FSF prefers to call "digital restrictions management." "Freedom means _you_ control what your software does, not merely that you can beg or threaten someone else who decides for you," Stallman wrote. "GPLv3 ensures you are free to remove the handcuffs. It doesn't forbid DRM, or any kind of feature. ... Rather, it makes sure that you are just as free to remove nasty features as the distributor of your copy was to add them." The fourth GPLv3 draft draws on feedback the FSF received from the general public and official discussion committees on the previous draft that appeared in March. One of the key changes is around license compatibility between the GPL and open source licenses. In the new draft, GPLv3 is now compatible with version 2.0 of the Apache License. The license also supports BitTorrent and contains language to make it friendlier to an international audience. Previous drafts of GPLv3 were met with a mixed reception in the open source community. In particular, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, was highly critical of the first two drafts, butÂ mellower about the third draft. Like other developers, he's previously stated he prefers to stick with GPLv2. "GPL version 2 will remain a valid license, and no disaster will happen if some programs remain under GPLv2 while others advance to GPLv3," Stallman wrote. "These two licenses are incompatible, but that isn't a serious problem." By "incompatible," the FSF means that it sees no legal way to combine code licensed under GPLv2 with code under GPLv3. Such incompatibility is only an issue if developers want to link, merge, or combine code from programs licensed under GPLv2 and GPLv3. "There is no problem in having GPLv3-covered and GPLv2-covered programs side by side in an operating system," Stallman wrote. The FSF will take comments on the fourth draft for 29 days and plans to officially publish the final GPLv3 license on June 29. The fourth draft of GPLv3 and Stallman's essay are on the FSF's Web site atÂ gplv3.fsf.org.
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The worlds of Open Source and proprietary software have collided once more with the news that Debian - builder of a version of the GNU/Linux operating system - announcing it cannot live with the terms of Microsoft&#39;s licence for its technology in the
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Let the countdown begin After months of pre-launch wrangling, legal jousting and clause tweaking, the Free Software Foundation is ready to launch the final version of the GNU GPL version 3. The champagne corks will officially pop at 12 noon, EDT, tomorrow, Friday June 29.â¦
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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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In his latest post, Padraic Brady takes a look at PEAR in a verb form - both in how you can use it and what sorts of things it has in store.   over the last few months after finally getting over my ignorance of PEAR beyond it being a hodge podge of packages of dubious quality I've been questioning whether pearifying my future and past code is worthwhile. The answer is a resounding YES.   Unfortunately, there are some barriers for most people to get into the PEAR world (including the lack of the "coolest packages") with some of the perceived barriers including:   PEAR will require large scale changes to my shiny new cool code PEAR only allows proposals for complete functional code PEAR is elitist PEAR is fossilised   He also talks about PEAR packages and dispels one of the most popular myths about the package repository - "you can't use PEAR on a shared host".
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While many consumers are standing in line to get their hands on a $500 iPhone, Apple&#39;s new toy is not the only major release in the technology world today. Indeed, Friday also marks the release of version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
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PÃ¡draic Brady has followed up his last post on PEAR. This time he's covered the method to package and distribute source code using the PEAR installer.  All right then! You read the last blog entry advocating PEAR (or found it during the week ;-)) and you want to know all about packaging code so your users can install your library or application using the PEAR installer. A few things first:  1. You don't need to propose a package to PEAR to do this. 2. You don't need to create a PEAR "channel" although it's very much recommended (another future blog post no doubt). 3. You don't need a whole lot of effort.  Taking your source code, and generating a PEAR package is a relatively simple task.  He covers the process at lengths with easy to follow steps.
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Linux gets its latest kernel update and a real-time makeover; debate continues on GPL changes.