| How late could the GPLv3 be? |
Mar. 27, 2007
It's been over two years now since the Free Software Foundation (FSF) started seriously working on revising that key open-source license, the GPL (Gnu General Public License). On March 28, we're finally going to get... the next draft. How late could the final release of the GPLv3 be?
Mid-2007? At least. Late 2007? Quite likely. 2008? Could be. 2010!? I wouldn't be surprised.
I've got a bad feeling about this.
I always knew that there would be a lot of trouble getting the GPLv3 out the door. As I foresaw back in November of 2004, the fight over what should, and shouldn't, be in the GPLv3 has turned into a "long, bitter dispute." I didn't think, however, it would be this bad.
The FSF has insisted that the GPLv3 would include strong, clear language that addresses patent problems in general, and the recent Novell/Microsoft patent agreement in specific. The Novell/Microsoft deal has proven to be a real problem child, and it's the main reason why the GPLv3 is still lagging.
Now, I'm no lawyer, but boy do I have a lot of friends who are lawyers. Their informal consensus is that getting clauses into the GPLv3 that will block similar deals from happening in the future -- while avoiding cutting legitimate software patent uses off at the knees -- is going to be almost impossible.
Now, I have all the respect in the world for Eben Moglen, the chief legal mind behind the GPLv3. But, I'm willing to wager a small amount of money that he'd agree that finding a way to block future Novell/Microsoft-style patent deals has been extremely difficult. Actually, some of the legal eagles I've talked to think it's impossible -- they may be right.
In any case, if you look closely at how the FSF is proposing to handle the revision process for the GPLv3, the earliest we'd see a final for GPLv3 will be mid-summer 2007. It could be longer, a lot longer.
There's room in that schedule for almost endless debates, and I think that's exactly what we're going to have.
And, lest we forget, Linus "Linux" Torvalds has no use for the GPLv3 for Linux. He, on the other hand, is mild-mannered compared to many of the other core Linux developers who think that the GPLv3 could kill open-source.
Now, there are some, like free software leader Bruce Perens, who believe that, while "Linus Torvalds and some other kernel team members don't like it today," in one or two years the kernel team might see fit to switch Linux to GPLv3.
I don't think they will. For them, the GPLv3 will be dead on arrival whenever it shows up. But, you know what, at this point, I have no idea when we're really going to see a GPLv3.
If you think back, you may recall that companies, even open-source friendly ones like HP, were still not happy in general with the last GPLv3 draft's patent language. Are they going to be happy now, with the carefully restrictive language that will be needed to block another Microsoft/Novell patent deal? I doubt it.
At this point, I quite seriously don't expect to see the GPLv3 arrive, at the earliest, for another year. And, you know what? I really wouldn't be surprised if we're still fussing over what's what in the GPLv3 in 2010.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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