GNU founder defends new GPL licence

 

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By Simon Aughton

Posted on 5 Jun 2007 at 08:43

Ironically, the biggest obstacle to GPLv3 adoption is Linus Torvalds, creator of the kernel software that underpin Linux. Torvalds has stated he will not be moving the kernel from GPLv2 to v3, though his reasons are not entirely clear.

Stallman does not appear to be too concerned, since GPLv3 is designed to work alongside v2. 'There is no problem in having GPLv3-covered and GPLv2-covered programs side-by-side in an operating system,' he explains. 'For instance, the TeX license and the Apache license are incompatible with GPLv2, but that doesn't stop us from running TeX and Apache in the same system with Linux, Bash and GCC. This is because they are all separate programs. Likewise, if Bash and GCC move to GPLv3, while Linux remains under GPLv2, there is no conflict.'

However it will not be permissible to to combine code under GPLv2 with code under GPLv3 in a single program. 'This is because both GPLv2 and GPLv3 are copyleft licences: each of them says, "If you include code under this licence in a larger program, the larger program must be under this licence too." There is no way to make them compatible. We could add a GPLv2-compatibility clause to GPLv3, but it wouldn't do the job, because GPLv2 would need a similar clause.'

Stallman's defence can be read at gplv3.fsf.org/rms-why.html.