Desktop platforms Toolkit

GPL to get a makeover

Stephen Shankland CNET News.com

Published: 23 Dec 2004 16:10 GMT

Frank Bernstein, an attorney with Sughrue Mion, suggests Stallman look for inspiration to the Apple Public Source License and the Common Public License IBM often uses. Both grant a licence to use patents covering the software, and when it comes to organisations that sue for patent infringement, both licences terminate their rights to use and distribute the software.

Bernstein says addressing patents could make the GPL more palatable among corporations -- users that have become major contributors to, and customers of, open source software.

But some would like to see the GPL be more of a political tool to overturn the idea of software patents. "We need to find some way to monkey-wrench the awful, broken software-patent oligopoly before it does more serious damage," says Eric Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative. "If GPL [version] 3 can help do that, it would be extremely valuable."

And Bruce Perens, an open source advocate, would like to see damages for a patent-infringement suit extended to prohibit use not just of the software in question but of all programs classified as free software. "I would like to see the next issue of the GPL include a mutual-defence clause regarding patents, such that if you enforce a patent against any free software, your rights to use free software terminate," Perens says.

A middle ground is possible, Linux seller Novell said in a statement. "Intellectual-property protection and open source can work hand in hand and are not mutually inconsistent," the company says.

Other changes
Stallman listed several other areas where modifications are under way:

The GPL will become more compatible with some other free software licences that have minor conditions that currently prohibit programmers from intermingling the GPL and non-GPL code. None of those other licences are very widely used, however, he said.
An area of investigation is getting GPL software to run on devices such as TiVo's digital video recorders, which use a specific version of Linux but won't run modified versions. But prohibitions on modifications violates the spirit of the GPL. "This is not what free software is supposed to be," Stallman said.
The next version is likely to have a mechanism for dealing with GPL software that has been modified and that runs on publicly accessible computers. Today, a programmer who wanted his or her GPL software to run in this public fashion could insert a programming command that would let the public download a version of the software if it's been modified. However, with the current GPL, the organisation running the software could simply remove that section of the code. Stallman is considering a provision that would prohibit its removal. "If the program has such a command already, and you modify the program, you must keep that working," he said.

Stallman isn't the only one looking for improvements.

Martin Fink, vice-president of Linux at HP, has been grappling with some thorny GPL issues. One problem he foresees -- related to the TiVo issue Stallman raises -- is integration with the "trusted computing" technology under development.