ZDNet UK

CNET NETWORKS UK BUSINESS SITES:
atlarge.com
BNET UK
silicon.com
SmartPlanet.com
ZDNet.co.uk

ZDNet.co.uk - Winner of Best Business Website 2007

You are here: ZDNet.co.uk > News > Software

Desktop platforms Toolkit

Expunging the myths of open source

Eileen Yu CNETAsia

Published: 23 Nov 2004 17:45 GMT

Tell me about the GNU GPL (General Public License). Are you still working on it?
Yes, we're slowly working on thinking about what to put into GPL version three, but not with a great sense of urgency.

What's not clear about the GPL now?
It's not so much as in things that are not clear as a matter of trying to handle some issues differently. One issue that we might want to handle differently is the question of using a modified version publicly.

Usually, when you install a program on your computer and you run it, you're using it privately. There are certain kinds of use that are public, for instance, putting it on a server and letting the public get access to that server and run that program. So our idea is that, it's legitimate for a developer to say, if you make a modified version and you put it into public use, then you have to make the source codes available to those who are using it.

There was some confusion around that, wasn't there?
There is no confusion about that. GPL version two doesn't require this, it's very clear. But we're thinking that it might be a useful requirement to have for some programs so the idea is to design a way that a developer can optionally require this when using GPL version three.

The way we're thinking of is, if you design the program so that it has a command that the user can use to download the source, then whoever makes a modified version and installs it publicly has to keep that working and provide the source code of the version in use.

And you won't make an umbrella rule that requires everyone to do that?
No. This is because that would mean a big change for existing programs and we don't want to do that.

We might also put in some kind of additional clause to take away rights from those who attack the community with patents. But we're not sure what kind of clause would be legitimate and effective. So we haven't done it yet.

We might put in something that says you can't put the software into a kind of DRM signature system that won't let the users run modified version. So, if you're distributing it in a machine that requires signatures to run the program, then you've got to give the signature keys to the users so they can store their modified versions so it would run. This would essentially make such a scheme futile, but that's the whole point: people should be free. But again, this is a possibility and we're not sure we're going to do this.

I should point out that the GNU GPL is just one of many free-software licences. Any licence that says you have these four freedoms is a free-software licence. Now, there are two large categories of free-software licences: the copyleft and the non-copyleft licences. The copyleft licences say that all modified versions must also be free and they must be under the same licence. The GNU GPL is an example of a copyleft licence.

There are also free-software licences that are not copyleft, and those permit non-free versions of the program. Now, I think it's a mistake to permit that in most cases. Why should we cooperate in any way with resistance of non-free software? Why should we let our code be used in any non-free software? The way I see it, if someone else is not going to share with you and me, then why should he be able to use our code if we're not going to be able to use his codes? The GPL says, you're welcome to join us in sharing… but you can't just take and privatise, and then use our code to subjugate people.