GPLv3 released today
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GPLv3 released today
by
Tracy R Reed
—
last modified
Jan 02, 2009 12:49 AM
The GNU General Public License, the software license which has enabled
companies like Interactivate, Google, Redhat, and others to thrive and
for guys like me to have a career, has just had a new version
released.
It's funny how such a notable event which affects so much software
that so many big companies critically depend on will pass with barely
a mention in the industry trade press.
The first version of the GNU General Public License appeared in
1988. Version 2 was released in 1991. Version 2 survived the PC
explosion, Internet explosion, dot com boom and bust, and appears to
be weathering the legal attacks from SCO and others quite well. While
other companies change their license like most people change underwear
the GPLv2 has endured for 16 years. But now the recent litigious trend
due to the proprietary software industry having their business model
obsoleted by Free Software plus the patent issues among others have
caused some additional language to be added and other language
clarified to further protect the rights of software users.
Most of the GPL licensed software we use will automatically transition
to the GPLv3 by virtue of the "or any later version" language included
in GPLv2. The Linux kernel will not because it does not include the
"any later version" language but I have a feeling it will be manually
moved to GPLv3 some day.
The text of GPLv3 can be found here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
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