summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/scrap1_29.html
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/scrap1_29.html')
-rw-r--r--talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/scrap1_29.html259
1 files changed, 259 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/scrap1_29.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/scrap1_29.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a731547
--- /dev/null
+++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/scrap1_29.html
@@ -0,0 +1,259 @@
+<!-- This is the second edition of Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman.
+
+Free Software Foundation
+
+51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
+
+Boston, MA 02110-1335
+Copyright C 2002, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire book are permitted
+worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is
+preserved. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations
+of this book from the original English into another language provided
+the translation has been approved by the Free Software Foundation and
+the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all
+copies.
+
+ISBN 978-0-9831592-0-9
+Cover design by Rob Myers.
+
+Cover photograph by Peter Hinely.
+ -->
+
+
+ <a name="Why-Upgrade-to-GPLv3">
+ </a>
+ <h1 class="chapter">
+ 29. Why Upgrade to GPLv3
+ </h1>
+ <a name="index-patents_002c-GPL-version-3-and-4">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-GPL_002c-version-3_002c-why-upgrade-to">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-call-to-action_002c-upgrade-to-GPL-version-3">
+ </a>
+ <p>
+ Version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) has been released, enabling free software packages to upgrade from GPL version 2. This article explains why upgrading the license is important.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ First of all, it is important to note that upgrading is a choice. GPL
+version 2 will remain a valid license, and no disaster will happen if
+some programs remain under GPLv2 while others advance to GPLv3. These
+two licenses are incompatible, but that isn’t a fundamental problem.
+ </p>
+ <a name="index-copyleft_002c-GPL-and-2">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-GPL_002c-version-3_002c-compatibility">
+ </a>
+ <p>
+ When we say that GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible, it means there is
+no legal way to combine code under GPLv2 with code under GPLv3 in a
+single program. This is because both GPLv2 and GPLv3 are copyleft
+licenses: each of them says, “If you include code under this license
+in a larger program, the larger program must be under this license
+too.” There is no way to make them compatible. We could add a
+GPLv2-compatibility clause to GPLv3, but it wouldn’t do the job,
+because GPLv2 would need a similar clause.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Fortunately, license incompatibility matters only when you want to
+link, merge or combine code from two different programs into a single
+program. There is no problem in having GPLv3-covered and
+GPLv2-covered programs side by side in an operating system. For
+instance, the
+ <a name="index-TeX-4">
+ </a>
+ TeX license and the
+ <a name="index-Apache-License">
+ </a>
+ Apache license are incompatible with
+GPLv2, but that doesn’t stop us from running TeX and
+ <a name="index-Apache">
+ </a>
+ Apache in the
+same system with Linux,
+ <a name="index-BASH-_0028Bourne-Again-Shell_0029_002c-GNU-4">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-GNU_002c-GNU-BASH-_0028Bourne-Again-Shell_0029-4">
+ </a>
+ Bash and
+ <a name="index-GNU_002c-GCC-5">
+ </a>
+ GCC. This is because they are all
+separate programs. Likewise, if Bash and GCC move to GPLv3, while
+Linux remains under GPLv2, there is no conflict.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Keeping a program under GPLv2 won’t create problems. The reason to
+migrate is because of the existing problems that GPLv3 will address.
+ </p>
+ <a name="index-tivoization-2">
+ </a>
+ <p>
+ One major danger that GPLv3 will block is tivoization. Tivoization
+means certain “appliances” (which have computers inside)
+contain
+ <a name="index-GPL_002dcovered-software-_0028see-also-software_0029-3">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-GPL_002c-GPL_002dcovered-software-_0028see-also-software_0029-3">
+ </a>
+ GPL-covered software that you can’t effectively change, because the
+appliance shuts down if it detects modified software. The usual
+motive for tivoization is that the software has features the
+manufacturer knows people will want to change, and aims
+to stop people from changing them. The manufacturers of
+these computers take advantage of the freedom that free software
+provides, but they don’t let you do likewise.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Some argue that competition between appliances in a free market should
+suffice to keep nasty features to a low level. Perhaps competition
+alone would avoid arbitrary, pointless misfeatures like “Must shut
+down between 1pm and 5pm every Tuesday,” but even so, a choice of
+masters isn’t freedom. Freedom means
+ <em>
+ you
+ </em>
+ control what your software
+does, not merely that you can beg or threaten someone else who decides
+for you.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ In the crucial area of
+ <a name="index-DRM_002c-GPL-version-3-and">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-DRM_002c-call-it-_0060_0060Digital-Restrictions-Management_0027_0027-3">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-DMCA_002c-GPL-version-3-and">
+ </a>
+ Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)—nasty features
+designed to restrict your use of the data in your
+computer—competition is no help, because relevant competition is
+forbidden. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and similar
+laws, it is illegal, in the US and many other countries, to distribute
+DVD players unless they restrict the user according to the official
+rules of the DVD conspiracy (its web site is
+ <a href="http://www.dvdcca.org/">
+ http://www.dvdcca.org/
+ </a>
+ ,
+but the rules do not seem to be published there). The public can’t
+reject DRM by buying non-DRM players because none are available. No
+matter how many products you can choose from, they all have equivalent
+digital handcuffs.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ GPLv3 ensures you are free to remove the handcuffs. It doesn’t forbid
+DRM, or any kind of feature. It places no limits on the substantive
+functionality you can add to a program, or remove from it. Rather, it
+makes sure that you are just as free to remove nasty features as the
+distributor of your copy was to add them. Tivoization is the way they
+deny you that freedom; to protect your freedom, GPLv3 forbids
+tivoization.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The ban on tivoization applies to any product whose use by consumers is to be expected, even occasionally. GPLv3 tolerates tivoization
+only for products that are almost exclusively meant for businesses and
+organizations.
+ <a name="index-tivoization-3">
+ </a>
+ </p>
+ <a name="index-Novell-_0028see-also-patents_002c-GPL_002c-and-Microsoft_0029">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-patents_002c-Novell_002dMicrosoft-pact">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-Microsoft_002c-Novell_002dMicrosoft-pact">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-GPL_002c-version-3_002c-limited-patent-protection">
+ </a>
+ <p>
+ Another threat that GPLv3 resists is that of patent deals like the
+Novell-Microsoft pact. Microsoft wants to use its thousands of
+patents to make users pay Microsoft for the privilege of running
+GNU/Linux, and made this pact to try to achieve that. The deal offers
+rather limited protection from Microsoft patents to Novell’s customers.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Microsoft made a few mistakes in the Novell-Microsoft deal, and GPLv3
+is designed to turn them against Microsoft, extending that limited
+patent protection to the whole community. In order to take advantage
+of this protection, programs need to use GPLv3.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Microsoft’s lawyers are not stupid, and next time they may manage to
+avoid those mistakes. GPLv3 therefore says they don’t get a “next
+time.” Releasing a program under GPL version 3 protects it from
+Microsoft’s future attempts to make redistributors collect Microsoft
+royalties from the program’s users.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ GPLv3 also provides users with explicit patent protection from
+the program’s contributors and redistributors. With GPLv2, users rely
+on an implicit patent license to make sure that the company which
+provided them a copy won’t sue them, or the people they redistribute
+copies to, for patent infringement.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The explicit patent license in GPLv3 does not go as far as we might
+have liked. Ideally, we would make everyone who redistributes
+GPL-covered code give up all software patents, along with everyone
+who does not redistribute GPL-covered code, because there should be
+no software patents. Software patents are a
+vicious and absurd system that puts all software developers in danger
+of being sued by companies they have never heard of, as well as by all
+the megacorporations in the field. Large programs typically combine
+thousands of ideas, so it is no surprise if they implement ideas
+covered by hundreds of patents. Megacorporations collect thousands of
+patents, and use those patents to bully smaller developers. Patents
+already obstruct free software development.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ The only way to make software development safe is to abolish software
+patents, and we aim to achieve this some day. But we cannot do this
+through a software license. Any program, free or not, can be killed
+by a software patent in the hands of an unrelated party, and the
+program’s license cannot prevent that. Only court decisions or
+changes in patent law can make software development safe from patents.
+If we tried to do this with GPLv3, it would fail.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Therefore, GPLv3 seeks to limit and channel the danger. In
+particular, we have tried to save free software from a fate worse than
+death: to be made effectively proprietary, through patents. The
+explicit patent license of GPLv3 makes sure companies that use the GPL
+to give users the four freedoms cannot turn around and use their
+patents to tell some users, “That doesn’t include you.”
+It also stops them from colluding with other patent holders to do this.
+ </p>
+ <a name="index-BitTorrent">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-Apache-License-1">
+ </a>
+ <p>
+ Further advantages of GPLv3 include better internationalization, gentler
+termination, support for BitTorrent, and compatibility with the Apache
+license. All in all, plenty of reason to upgrade.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ Change is unlikely to cease once GPLv3 is released. If new threats to
+users’ freedom develop, we will have to develop GPL version 4. It is
+important to make sure that programs will have no trouble upgrading to
+GPLv4 if and when we write one.
+ </p>
+ <p>
+ One way to do this is to release a program under “GPL version 3 or any
+later version.” Another way is for all the contributors to a program
+to state a proxy who can decide on upgrading to future GPL versions.
+The third way is for all the contributors to assign copyright to one
+designated copyright holder, who will be in a position to upgrade the
+license version. One way or another, programs should provide this
+flexibility for future GPL versions.
+ <a name="index-GPL_002c-version-3_002c-why-upgrade-to-1">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-call-to-action_002c-upgrade-to-GPL-version-3-1">
+ </a>
+ <a name="index-patents_002c-GPL-version-3-and-5">
+ </a>
+ </p>
+ <hr size="2"/>
+