Charlie Babcock's GPLv3 story hit this morning. It's an interesting and thoughtful read, and goes to the heart of one of the big disagreements in open source: how far can a license go in seeking to ensure freedom?
There's a rift developing between camps within the free software movement over the next version of the most popular open source license, known as the General Public License, or GPL. And while that infighting might appear to be little more than a family squabble, its ramifications could be significant for how companies use open source software in the future.
A new version of the GPL, the third overall and the first revision since 1991, was supposed to be released this month. But controversy over several new provisions--and the authors' ambitions to thwart Microsoft's Linux pact with Novell--have delayed it until later …
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