| GPLv2 and GPLv3 for beginners |
Sep. 28, 2007
Do you find open source licenses a puzzle? Does reading stories about the legal side of open source give you the heebie-jeebies? If so, then we have the document for you.
A couple of years ago, I was bemoaning the fact that I'd gone from writing about technology to the law. Lord knows I hadn't planned on it. I'd come into technology journalism by being able to translate from techno-babble to English.
Patents? Copyrights? Trademarks? Ten years ago, I knew next to nothing about IP (intellectual property) law. Today, well I still don't know that much, but at least I know who to ask to get the right information, anyway.
Unfortunately, today, if you do anything with open source, you really need to know a little something about IP law. Or, at least, you need to know a bit about the GNU GPL (General Public License).
There are several ways to pick up the basics of open source licenses. Groklaw, as you might expect, has an excellent page on GPL resources. The Free Software Foundation's Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL is also an invaluable resource.
And now, you can read our hosted copy of "GPLv2 vs. GPLv3: The two seminal open source licenses, their roots, consequences and repercussions," a new whitepaper from VisionMobile Ltd., a UK-based business and technology research house. This well-written 18-page document will help you get a handle on some of the most pressing issues of today's open source licensing world.
While the GPLv3 is only slowly being adopted, several major software programs, most notably Samba, have now adopted it. In addition, as the recent dust-up between GPL and BSD license supporters over the licensing of an open source Atheros driver shows, open source licenses are not all the same, and incompatibilities between them is a matter of concern.
So it is that I'm pleased to present this whitepaper. It gives enough detail on the key differences between the GPLv2 and GPLv3 -- and the history behind them -- that even someone who doesn't know a tort from a warrant can make sense of the licenses and their differences.
Is this a work for a lawyer? No, far from it. But, if you want to know enough about the licenses in ordinary English to make an intelligent decision concerning these two open source licenses, I'm hard pressed to think of a better place to start.
It's even, dare I say it about a document discussing the law, enjoyable.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
The whitepaper is copyright (c) 2007 VisionMobile Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduced by Linux-Watch with permission of the owner.
 About the whitepaper's author: Liz Laffan is an Associate with marketing firm VisionMobile Ltd. She has over 15 years experience in the technology industry, particularly in areas such as outsourced technology management, technical due diligence, roadmap dissemination, and software specifications. Laffan holds a BA in Business Studies (Hons) and an MA in International Political Economy from Warwick University, with a specialization on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights.
VisionMobile describes itself as "a market know-how firm delivering industry research and strategy consulting in the wireless sector. We offer in-depth intelligence and due-diligence on emerging wireless market sectors and first-generation technologies. Our domain expertise lies at the confluence of network operators, handset manufacturers and mobile solution vendors. VisionMobile's clients include tier-1 operators and OEMs, solution vendors andinternational analyst houses."
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