The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today released version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), the world's most popular free software license. In a momentous occasion at Boston, Massachusetts USA, Richard.M.Stallman released the final text of GPLv3 which went through an unprecedented drafting process that has seen four published drafts in eighteen months.
Over and above the features of GPLv2, these are some of the additional features (as I have understood) of the new GPL licence known popularly as GPLv3.
- GPLv3 grants patent licence to every user who use a GPLv3 licenced software thus coming down heavily on software patents.
- Better cooperation with other GPL-like licences
- GPL version 3 does not prohibit DRM. However, it prohibits the use of tivoization and Treacherous Computing to stop users from changing the software.
Read the full press release as well as the final text of GPLv3 at the FSF website.
Update: Bruce Byfield has written an even better understood synopsis of the newly released GPLv3 license. And Rob Miller reports that GPLv3 has been submitted to Open Source Initiative for approval.
Update: Bruce Byfield has written an even better understood synopsis of the newly released GPLv3 license. And Rob Miller reports that GPLv3 has been submitted to Open Source Initiative for approval.
