Licensing

Resistance to GPL Version 3

The latest version of the GNU General Public License (“GPL”), Version 3, is due out later this year. Interestingly however, some players in the open source community have expressed reservation in adopting Version 3. MySQL AB, a major open source database provider has decided to limit its copyright notice to Version 2. Additionally, it appears that Linux will remain licensed under Version 2. [1]

One of the reasons cited by open source developers for their hesitation to adopt Version 3 stems from the digital rights management and patent provisions proposed in the latest version. Some members of the open source community feel that due to the success of Version 2, they question why any changes should be made to the license except for bug fixes. [2] Others argue that Version 3 of the GPL may go too far with the proposed changes, making it not compatible with Version 2. [3]

With so many different open source licenses currently in use and new ones being developed, compatibility will likely continue to be a problem. The possibility of compatibility issues between Version 2 and Version 3, as well as a potential rift within the open source community based on the proposed changes in Version 3, will likely make the GPL Version 3 a hot topic of discussion in 2007.