GPLv3, Belfast, 19th January 2006

Who am I?

• I'm a long time free software supporter.
• I've been active in the campaign against software patents and have moved from Ireland to Brussels to work on that.
• I was one of the founders of Irish Free Software Organisation in January 2004.
• Since April 2005 I've been working for Free Software Foundation Europe.
• ...and I'm just coming back from the launch event of the public consulation for drafting version 3 of the GNU General Public License, which I'll report on now.

The stakes

• The GNU GPL is by far the most used free software licence.
• Today, 100s of millions of computer users are relying on the GPL to protect their rights to help themselves and to collaborate with others.
• Not everyone shares the priority of spreading freedom. As well as friends, we have enemies, we have friends with multiple personalities, and we have users who would exploit the software if the opportunity arose. The strength of GPLv2 is shown by how it makes these groups work together.
• There are two indicators that GPLv2 is solid:
  1. It has only been taken to court twice, as far as I remember. If lawyers thought it was not solid, it would have been taken to court a lot more frequently.
  2. The two times it was brought before a court, we know it was solid because the judge said it was solid.
• For making changes to GPLv2, the golden rule is: do no harm.

The changes

• In general, I think the changes are quite moderate, probably less controversial than some people expected.

Software patents

GPLv2 had a tame patent clause. Today we're seeing some new free software licences with aggressive patent clauses, but these may backfire in practice. For example, if a patent holder sues me, and my licence penalises me if I initiate patent litigation, then I'm punished if I counter-sue. In that situation, the free software developer would be restricted, and the proprietary software developer would not be restricted. So GPLv3 has a strengthened patent clause, but it's still conservative. If we learn that a more aggressive clause would be better, that can be changed in GPLv4, I suppose, but for now, we have to make sure we do no harm.

Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)

The draft defines "Complete Corresponding Source Code" as including any codes necessary for using the software, modified or unmodified, so DRM is fine for personal use, but using it to restrict the freedoms that GPL is there to protect is not possible.

The draft also says that the covered software is not a "technical protection mechanism", and that the software cannot be used for the illegal invasion of privacy. These are both legal hacks, the first is a response to some specific legislation in the USA and the EU. The second looks like it's just stating the obvious, but what it actually does is it gives copyright holders the ability to enforce privacy laws when other parties neglect to do so.

Licence compatibility

As far as I know, every copyleft licence written after GPLv2 has been incompatible with GPLv2, except for those which have explicit compatibility clauses. Sometimes this is because of a matter of form, such as the warranty disclaimer being written differently, and sometimes it was a matter of substance, such as the addition of patent retaliation clauses. GPLv3 addresses this by saying that, provided the freedoms that the GPLv3 grants are left in-tact, copyright holders can write their own warranties and patent clauses. Some free software licences will still be incompatible, but two licences which Eben Moglen mentioned would now be compatible are the Apache Software License and the Eclipse Public License.

Internationalisation

There may be translations of GPLv3, or maybe not. Translating into another language creates a lot of room for errors, and makes reviewing the text more difficult. If there are translations, the strategy will probably be to have the translations only valid in countries where that language is an official language. This way, the impact of problems can be greatly limited.

Complexity and length

Everyone would like to see the GPL become shorter and simpler, but instead GPLv3 is longer and more complex. This is regretted, and if anyone has suggestions for shortening the licence, they will be very seriously considered, but the #1 priority has to be that the licence works. It has to have no loopholes, no shakey-bits, and it has to be enforceable in the legal systems of every country.

• Those are the main changes in substance. There are also lesser changes which are mere clarifications.

The coming process

Secrecy and transparency

• Until now, there was a lot of secrecy. Almost no one outside of FSF saw the private draft of GPLv3.
• One issue was that Richard Stallman didn't want to be lobbied.
• Another was that he wanted to remain flexible to change his mind - he didn't want to be restricted by previous statements.
• From this point on, things will be done out in the open. For one example, comments, and the rationale for acting or not acting on them, will be published online.

Timeline

• The coming consultation process is scheduled for approximately 12 months. No dates have been set in stone, and the final version may take more or less than 12 months.
• There will probably be two more drafts published during the year.
• The conference I'm coming from was only the first international GPLv3 conference, there should be at least two more: one in Latin America, and probably one in Europe, India, and East Asia, but the details aren't set.

Information flow

• FSF have a website where comments on the public draft should be submitted: gplv3.fsf.org.
• The comments will be reviewed and the duplicates merged. I think this work is done by the FSF's Associate Members (a program like FSFE's Fellowship).
• These are then passed on to the discussion committees. The discussion committees are representatives of GPL stake holders. One committee has members of Debian, the Mozilla Foundation, the Apache Foundation, Software in the Public Interest, etc. Another has CEO's of companies. Another, I think, has lawyers. These committees debate the issues, the licence changes which are possible, and the reasons for and against.
• The results of these debates will be passed to FSF for a final decision on whether something will be addressed by making a change to the draft of the licence, or if it will be addressed by attaching an examplanation for why the licence was not changed for this issue.

What we can do

• That's what will happen to the information after it is entered into gplv3.fsf.org, now the bit we can work on: what happens to the information before it is entered.
• Raise awareness among stake holders, so that no one is surprised in a year's time, and everyone gets to have their say.
• Read up and become a source for information. A lot of the comments I've heard so far are about parts of the GPL that have not been changed. So a lot of the people who are reading the GPLv3 draft have not read GPLv2.
• Help stake holders to take part.
• And support the work of people like FSFE, and encourage others to support our work, by joining the FSFE's Fellowship program.