GPLv3 Coverage

For all the coverage the process has gotten to date, the final GPLv3 was released to relatively little fanfare on Friday, June 29th. The reality, as with any legal document, is that it’s going to take a while for company and project lawyers to read through and digest their perceived implications. As anyone who’s worked in a large corporation knows, legal departments take their time on this. That means the reality is that we won’t see adoption by major projects for a little while. That’s not a bad thing, it was to be expected.

One thing that struck me about the GPLv3 process is just how much mainstream press it got. We’re talking about a software license after all. This has to be a first. Also, whether or not you like the end result of the GPLv3 I think you have to give the FSF credit. The GPLv1 was pretty much just Stallman and even the GPLv2 process was fairly closed. The GPLv3 draft process, however, was much more open and it’s clear that feedback was considered very seriously. You can even see demonstrable evidence of RMS making compromises in some places. That’s significant and credit should be given where credit is due.

I’m not a lawyer and haven’t had a change to even read the final GPLv3 from beginning to end, so I’m not going to comment on specifics at this time. I hope to set aside time for that in the near future. In the mean time, here are some of the links I’ll be using to base my research on. Please feel free to add quality links you’ve found in the comments. Thanks.

• Moglen: “The Global Software Industry in Transformation: After GPLv3”
• General Public License Version 3: A Legal View
• GPLv3 Q&A by Luis Villa
• Welcome to GPLv3

–jeremy