FSF Releases the Final Draft of GPLv3

The final version of the GNU General Public License 3.0 should be published before the end of June, bringing to an end some 18 months of discussions around the new license, the Free Software Foundation said on May 31.

The FSF also released the fourth and final draft of GPL version 3 on May 31, referred to as the "final call" draft, which will be open for comments for 29 days. The final license will be released after that.

The most notable changes found in this latest draft include making GPLv3 compatible with version 2.0 of the Apache license; ensuring that distributors who make discriminatory patent deals after March 28 may not convey software under GPLv3; adding terms to clarify how users can contract for private modification of free software or for a data center to run it for them; and replacing the previous reference to a U.S. consumer protection statute with explicit criteria for greater clarity outside the United States, FSF executive director Peter Brown said in a statement.

This final draft comes just over two months after the third draft of the license was released in late March, and incorporates feedback from the general public and official discussion committees. Much of the discussion was about the issue of license compatibility.

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"Weve made a few very important improvements based on the comments weve heard, most notably with license compatibility. Now that the license is almost finished, we can look forward to distributing the GNU system under GPLv3, and making its additional protections available to the whole community," he said.

The final draft also comes hot on the heels of claims by Microsoft that free and open-source software infringes 235 of its patents, and Novells publication of redacted versions of its patent and interoperability agreements with Microsoft.

Click here to read more about how the third draft of GPLv3 came under fire.

The "final call" draft of the license also does not prohibit Novell from distributing software under GPLv3 "because the patent protection they arranged with Microsoft last November can be turned against Microsoft to the communitys benefit," Brown said.

Linux vendor Red Hat declined to comment on this final draft version of the license, saying it would only do so once the license was final. Novell and Microsoft had not responded to requests for comment by the time this article was published.

To read more about why Novell went public with its Microsoft agreement documents, click here.

In a companion document designed to answer common questions about this latest GPLv3 draft, the foundation says that the various GNU licenses enjoy broad compatibility between each other. "The only time you cant combine code under two of these licenses is when you want to use code thats only under an older version of a license with code thats under a newer version," the document said.

It has also provided a detailed compatibility matrix for various combinations of the GNU licenses, which gives an easy-to-use reference for specific cases that can be found here.

With regard to how the new terms of section 11 of the draft license affect the Microsoft-Novell deal, the FSF said that it attacks the deal from two angles.

"First, in the fourth paragraph of section 11, the draft says that if you arrange to provide patent protection to some of the people who get the software from you, that protection is automatically extended to everyone who receives the software, no matter how they get it. This means that the patent protection Microsoft has extended to Novells customers would be extended to everyone who uses any software Novell distributes under GPLv3," the FSF said.

Secondly, in the fifth paragraph, the draft says that "you are prohibited from distributing software under GPLv3 if you make an agreement like the Microsoft-Novell deal. This will prevent other distributors from trying to make other deals like it in the future," the foundation explains in the Q&A document."

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