So you think you know and understand the GNU General Public Licence (GPL) and its associate the Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL)?
I thought I had a handle on it until just the other day when I happened upon a quiz issued by the Free Software Foundation. The quiz was innocuous enough and asked some seemingly "basic" questions on the rights and obligations defined by these important free software documents.
The GPL has evolved from its grassroots origin into a complex legal document.
Alastair Otter, Journalist, ITWeb
After struggling for a few minutes, I realised that my understanding of the documents had some fairly large gaps, which is probably a result of not having read either of them recently. It also brought home the fact that the licences have evolved from their grassroots origins into two highly complicated documents, with complex distribution rights and obligations.
Gone are the days when open source software was the creation of hackers who wanted to get software out to the community. Clearly the growing, and often partial, adoption of open source software by large commercial vendors and developers has put pressure on the boundaries of what is free software and what is not. As more and more commercial development houses pick up on the plethora of free software available and start incorporating elements of these projects in their own applications, the exact rights and obligations become somewhat muddy.
Take for example the patent rights imposed by the GPL. By distributing a modified open source application which incorporates a patented technology, the patent holder is obligated by the GPL to allow anyone who uses the code, under the GPL, to practise their patented technology as well. Depending on how you read this, it could well mean that patents are all but invalidated by the requirements of the GPL. And while the topic of software patents is a highly contentious one, this is sure to spark a considerable amount of concern among large vendors, particularly those that have enormous numbers of patents and yet are pouring substantial amounts of money into Linux development.
Another one is the distribution of source code. Take for example a GPL application distributed by someone who is not the original writer of the code. Simply making the source available on their site with a URL on the original distribution media is not enough. The source code should be specifically distributed with the original application, or it needs to be advertised as available on request for no more than the cost of distribution.
There are countless more examples of these types of obligations and restrictions in the GPL and LGPL, and while it is good to see the free software movement protecting itself against commercial opportunists, it is also disturbing to see that what started as a good idea (free software), has been turned into a legal minefield that requires lawyers to make head or tail of it.
While it is clearly important to protect the rights and spirit of the free software movement, it is highly likely that restrictions such as those imposed by the GPL could also do a lot to scare off potential developers and users who suspect free software may invalidate all their ownership rights in one fell swoop. What is obviously needed at this point is for the free software movement to build awareness of the GPL, while explaining in simple terms exactly what can and can`t be done under either of the licences, in layman`s terms.
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