Should we drop the "or later" after GPLv2?

Rob Landley rob at landley.net
Wed Aug 23 22:04:00 UTC 2006


On Saturday 19 August 2006 12:02 pm, Yann E. MORIN wrote:
> Hello all!
> 
> Maybe my reply will slide this thread a bit off-topic, but please consider 
it:
> 
> On Saturday 19 August 2006 063, Rob Landley wrote:
> > This wasn't really an issue before GPLv3 drafts came out, but seeing it 
> > neither Erik nor I are are particularly thrilled with it.
> 
> What exactly does the GPLv3 says that you don't like? IANAL, and reading
> this stuff (as well as the current v2) gives me headaches. As well, English
> is not my mother tongue, and I can't afford reading a translation because
> the original meaning might get lost...

Mostly I consider GPLv3 unnecessary and inherently divisive (it's a non-GPLv2 
compatible license relying on optional text in permission grants for 
compatability), but a random example of active badness?

Five years ago I wrote a firmware installation script.  It downloaded new 
firmware off of a website and verified a pgp signature on it before 
installing it.  (It wasn't encrypted, just signed.)  Under GPLv3, we'd have 
to give out our private PGP key, and so would Red Hat for signed RPMs.

Now perhaps we could just modify the installer to pop up a warning message 
about unsigned firmware and let them install it anyway.  And in that case, 
sure thing, it was just a better CRC on a firewall/VPN/NAS thing that was 
designed to prevent tampering, not to prevent the admin from doing something 
stupid.  (Heck, you could crack the box open and do anything you wanted with 
the standard IDE/66 hard drive.  I meantioned this was years ago.)

However, what if somebody _wants_ to rent out hardware (I don't actually own 
my cable modem at home, it's the cable company's) and make sure that only 
their software runs on it?  Or what if someone wants to make sure that only 
an actual World of Warcraft client connects to the World of Warcraft servers 
to keep the gold farming down to a dull roar?  I can see real world use cases 
for this.  The GPLv2 says I have to be able to get their source code, it does 
NOT say I have to be able to run arbitrary code on their hardware.

Heck, show me a way to write up this clause where I couldn't use the license 
terms to demand the root password to any box I have normal user access to 
that's running any of my software.  If I'm taking night courses at a 
university that's running a Linux server using the BusyBox login or su 
commands, are they "denying me the full exercise of my rights" if they won't 
let me install a different version of that login command on that server, one 
that gives me a backdoor?  After all, it's my code.  (But it's THEIR SERVER.)  
Under GPLv2, they may owe me a copy of the code, but they do NOT owe me root 
access to their box to run it on.

The World of Warcraft example's a fun one.  Suppose that server uses a copy of 
BusyBox somewhere, and I have a World of Warcraft character.  Playing my 
character occasionally triggers the busybox code (I dunno, maybe when I mail 
something to another player).  Do they owe me root access to the server under 
GPLv3?

Trying to control use like this is something GPLv2 didn't even attempt.  The 
ownership issues are at a different level.  I understand that the FSF is 
scared of the Xbox, and the second draft sucks much less in this regard than 
the first one did.  But still.

Quick glance at the license text for other examples brings up 8.4: you can't 
terminate if 60 days have gone by since the last violation.  So the Hall of 
Shame would be useless then.  (It doesn't say what you'd have to do to 
mollify said copyright holder to get reinstated either, or how you prove they 
were mistake (or just plain nuts).  If you're going to leave that part to 
case law and the courts then why have this section at all?)

HP is kind of upset about section 11, which doesn't restrict itself to 
software patents.  If you run GPL software on patented hardware, do you give 
up your rights to enforce the hardware patents?  As long as somebody who 
clones your hardware bundles GPL software on it and says "the covered work is 
the whole thing, hardware plus software", are you now screwed?  Intel must 
love this one.  That one's probably fixable and they mean well, but "the 
material that they conveyed" can include hardware...

I'm sure I could come up with more if I sat down and tried, but I have many, 
many other things to do this week...

Rob
-- 
Never bet against the cheap plastic solution.



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