GPL Version 3, Draft #2 Published Today
Updating Free Software's Top Licence
After six months of public comment, the second public discussion draft of
GPLv3 is now online - responding to public input about patents, Digital
Restrictions Management, and global enforceability among other things.
Version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), published in 1991,
is the most widely used Free Software licence, and possibly the most
widely used single licence in the World.
The public process for drafting version 3 began on January 16th when a first
discussion draft was published. The final, official version 3 is slated for
release in early 2007. Today, the 2nd public discussion draft has gone
online.
To explain the proposed changes, and to raise awareness of the
process, members of Free Software Foundation Europe have been
travelling around Europe, and to the international GPLv3 conferences
in Boston, Brazil, and Barcelona.
The GNU GPL aims to ensure that everyone that receives a copy of the
software, also receives permission to study it, to change it, and to
distribute modified or unmodified copies. The GNU GPL is the real world
implementation of this ideal, and not only has the tactic proved practical,
but the GNU GPL has also been so-far found enforceable World-wide. Version
3 is an evolution - and upgrade, not a rewrite - on the current licence.
Georg Greve, President of FSFE commented: "People sometimes have the
feeling that the GNU GPL has been around forever, and they would not be
entirely wrong. Published in 1991, the GNU GPL has proven to be
exceptionally successful throughout the past fifteen years." Greve
continued, "with such an exceptional success, one will change as little as
possible. But there are changes in the legal and technical environment, as
well as the position of Free Software and its community, that made some
changes advisable. The process to update the licence is aiming at a global
GPLv3 drafting team, and everyone is invited to participate."
Ciaran O'Riordan added: "This is a new type of project for the Free
Software community, so we're pleased it's going so well. The GPL lays
down the terms under which people can distribute free software. It
requires that everyone respect certain freedoms for others, and this
applies the same for individuals, project teams, networks, right the way
up to multinationals. There will be no change in these goals of the GPL -
the freedoms to help yourself and for everyone to help each other are
ethical imperatives and won't be compromised. The added value of version
3 is being created by everyone working together to preserve freedom
against problems that didn't exist in 1991, and to make it as solid and
unambiguous as possible - the World over."
More information about the draft and how the public participates is at:
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
And the official GPLv3 website is at:
http://gplv3.fsf.org
About the Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable
non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free
Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate
in a digital society. Therefore the freedoms to use, copy, modify and
redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition -
allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness
of these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and
giving people freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the
United States.
www.fsfeurope.org
Commission to Microsoft: Preventing interoperability has a price
FSFE welcomes the decision by the European Commission.
"Microsoft is still as far from allowing competition as it was on the
day of the original Commission ruling in 2004. All proposals made by
Microsoft were deliberately exclusive of Samba, the major remaining
competitor. In that light, the fines do not seem to come early, and
they do not seem high," comments Carlo Piana, Milano based lawyer of
the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) regarding the decision of
the European Commission to fine Microsoft 1.5 million Euro per day
retroactively from 16. December 2005, totalling 280.5 million Euro.
Should Microsoft not come into compliance until the end of July 2006,
the daily fines could be doubled.
These fines are a reaction to Microsofts continued lack of compliance
with the European Commission decision to make interoperability
information available to competitors as a necessary precondition to
allow fair competition. FSFE has supported the European Commission
>From the start of the suit in 2001.
Having made similar statements during the hearing, Microsoft commented
to the press last week [1] that 300 engineers are currently working
"day and night" to fulfill the request of the public authorities.
"If we are to believe Microsofts numbers, it appears that 120.000
person days are not enough to document its own software. This is a
task that good software developers do during the development of
software, and a hallmark of bad engineering," comments Georg Greve,
president of the FSFE. "For users, this should be a shock: Microsoft
apparently does not know the software that controls 95% of all desktop
computers on this planet. Imagine General Motors releasing a press
statement to the extent that even though they had 300 of their best
engineers work on this for two years, they cannot provide
specifications for the cars they built."
Many companies run a mixed network of Windows, GNU/Linux, Unix and
other operating systems (OS). The Windows products understand each
other, and all the other operating systems can talk to each other. It
is the connection between the two worlds that was deliberatly
obfuscated a few years ago by Microsoft, and that the Samba project is
working on.
During the main hearing at the European Court of Justice toward the
end of April, the president and founder of Samba Dr. Andrew Tridgell
presented the work of the Samba Team work. Among other things, he
demonstrated a box for roughly 100 EUR. If Microsoft did not hide its
interoperability information, that box would already be capable of
administrating hundreds of users. A small 100 EUR box could do the
same task that is currently done by an entire PC for 1.000,- EUR.
"Dr. Tridgell demonstrated easily what kind of innovation is locked
out of the market by Microsofts refusal to interoperate with other
vendors. In this case, the price of that refusal are domain
controllers that are ten times more expensive than necessary, and the
price is paid by everyone: private businesses, public authorities and
society as a whole," Georg Greve summarises.
He concludes: "When will society refuse to legitimise such business
practices by buying from companies that exhibit such behaviour?"
[1] http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/07/04/216779/Microsoft+working+…
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charitable
non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free
Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may
participate in a digital society. Therefore the Freedoms to use,
copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in the Free
Software definition- allow equal participation in the information
age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software
politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting
development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE. The
FSFE was founded in 2001 as the European sister organisation of the
Free Software Foundation in the United States.
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
1. GPLv3 conference in Barcelona
2. FSFE at UN WIPO PCDA/2
3. Anja Vorspel hired part time to help in FSFE office
4. Georg Greve at dorkbot.swiss
5. Linuxwochen in Linz (Austria)
6. Stefano Maffulli at Java Conference Milano
1. GPLv3 conference in Barcelona
The Free Software Foundation Europe organised the third international
GPLv3 conference in Barcelona, Spain. The first day of the two day event
featured speeches from Georg Greve, Richard Stallman, Ciarán O'Riordan
and Eben Moglen about the changes in GPLv3 and the public consultation
process. The second day included four panel discussions, a talk by Pablo
Machón about software patents and a closing presentation by Stefano
Maffulli.
Hosting an official GPLv3 conference in Europe was very important, and
the FSFE was proud to be able to organise it. Financial contributions
from the Fellowship and the work of the Fellows and other volunteers
were essential to make this conference possible. Also, FSFE would like
to thank Stichting NLNet, whose donation supports a large part of the
GPLv3 activities.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/europe-gplv3-conference.en.html
2. FSFE at UN WIPO PCDA/2
The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)
held its second Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO
Development Agenda meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. This meeting was
the last before the next WIPO general assembly, and was intended to
formalise the agenda items for a WIPO reform. After several days of
discussion, a proposal to drop all items except those immediately
acceptable to the United States and European Union led to escalation,
and a total disassembling of the meeting. FSFE's statements can be
found online at
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/
and FSFE's president Georg Greve also summarised much of what has
happened throughout these days in his blog:
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/(tag)/WIPO
3. Anja Vorspel hired part time to help in FSFE office
Thanks to Rainer Kersten, FSFE's new office in Düsseldorf is up and
running. Rainer works in the office on part time basis and is joined by
Anja Vorspel as a complimentary part time officer. Anja has been
helping as a volunteer in the new office from the start.
4. Georg Greve at dorkbot.swiss
FSFE's president Georg Greve spoke at the dorkbot.swiss event in
Zürich, Switzerland. The dorkbot events are a global network of events
about "doing strange things with electricity", bringing together
artists from various fields and interested people. Georg Greve spoke
about Free Software, its social impact, and how Free Software is both
shaping art and offering new perspectives for artistic work.
5. Linuxwochen in Linz (Austria)
After the positive experience in Vienna, Karin Kosina also gave a
presentation about the FSFE at another event in the Linuxwochen series,
this time in Linz. Although this event was much smaller, her talk was
again well received.
6. Stefano Maffulli at Java Conference Milano
During the latest Java Conference in Milano on 27 June, the Italian
chancellor of FSFE presented the revision process of the GPLv3 to a
public of small and medium enterprises.
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html