The hoped release time for this is Monday.
http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/GPLv3_press_release
Comments appreciated. It still needs fact checking. It's long, but that's fine so long as it's laid out so that reading the first half will still give a clear picture. Being complete is useful because hopefully people will link to this and it will be read by web users as well as journos.
Hello Ciaran,
Here is a version of your press release i'd like to read in a newspaper. Little reorganisation and small changes and cuts... you may not agree... Take it as you wish :)
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WORLD #1 FREE SOFTWARE LICENSE, THE GPL, TO BE REVISED IN A PUBLIC PROCESS WELCOMED BY IRISH FREE SOFTWARE ORGANISATION
// When, who, what ? January 20th. A year-long public consultation process has begun for the drafting of the third version of the most widely used free software license: the GNU General Public License a.k.a. "the GPL". Free Software Foundation launched the process by opening their discussion forum for accepting comments.
// Reminder and history Version 2, published in 1991, forms the legal basis of civil liberties of hundreds of millions of people across all continents as well as billion euro business plans.
Most software licenses are written so as to prevent collaboration and cooperation among users and developers of that software. Free software licenses have to do the opposite.
The purpose of the GPL is to ensure that everyone who receives a copy of the programs it covers are free to study what the software is doing, free to modify the software or have it modified for them by a third party, and free to redistribute both the original software and any modifications they have made.
Despite this legally tricky task, the GPL has proved very sturdy. Only twice has a prosecutor based it's argument on the GPL being flawed, once in Germany, once in the USA, and in both cases the GPL was ruled enforceable.
// Examples Well known software use the GPL include the Linux kernel, the GNU tools, the Open Office office suite, and even games as Quake3. The popular browser Mozilla Firefox use for his part a very similar licence.
// Why change it ? Legislation and technology have changed since 1991. The modifications being considered for version 3 are to serve the same purpose as version 2, but updated for today's environment.
One example is software patents. Although Europeans are currently 95% safe from software patents, other parts of the world are not so lucky. In the USA and Japan, software developers are under constant threat of patent litigation. Europeans cannot rely on still being safe a year or a decade from now, depending of EU's legislators.
The draft GPLv3 contains a clause which terminates your rights to use and modify the software if you bring a patent suit against someone else who modifies or distributes the software. Thus, people who use patents to attack free software developers shall lose the benefit of using free software.
A second example of a problem which should be addressed by GPLv3 is Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). DRM is a plan to put all computers under the control of current monopolies from the software and copyrighted entertainment industry. The draft of the GPLv3 has provisions to prevent GPL covered software from being usable for the purpose of enforcing DRM. It does this by requiring that if passwords are needed to control the software, they must be made available to the recipient of the software. This allows DRM to be used, but only when the software user has equal control over what the software does.
// Citations Ciaran O'Riordan of IFSO said from the GPLv3 launch event :
"While we in IFSO are looking forward to participating in the process, we also have a responsibility to help other Irish stake holders to participate. So during 2006 we hope to raise awareness among free software businesses and free software users, about what is happening and how they can get involved and have their say."
Person#2 added
"Of all free software license, the GPL has proven to be the most investment friendly. Making vendor lock-in and monopolies practically impossible, the GPL makes a level playing field where everyone is bound by the same rules. Updating the license is necessary to preserve this strength."
//About IFSO IFSO was founded in January 2004 with the aims of promoting and protecting software which comes with the freedom to study it, modify it and redistribute it: Free Software. The founders of IFSO had been working together before then, primarily on the campaign against software patents. Independence, transparency, and the ability to cooperate and collaborate with others have provided the systems of freedom. IFSO works to ensure that new legislation does not restrict the writing, using, or distribution of free software. IFSO would also hopes to encourage businesses which write, deploy, or support free software.
Hope this helps !
Jean-François Bucas
Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
The hoped release time for this is Monday.
http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/GPLv3_press_release
Comments appreciated. It still needs fact checking. It's long, but that's fine so long as it's laid out so that reading the first half will still give a clear picture. Being complete is useful because hopefully people will link to this and it will be read by web users as well as journos.
Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran@fsfe.org writes:
The hoped release time for this is Monday.
Also, I've sent a mail to fsfe-uk(at)gnu.org asking if any UK groups want to join in and make it a joint PR (but my mail hasn't appeared yet, must be a delay).