Moglen Moves On to Life After GPLv3

Published: Apr 25, 2007
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
2 minute read
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While not as familiar a name in open-source circles as Linus Torvalds or Richard M. Stallman, for those in the know, Eben Moglen ranks near them in his importance to the free software movement.

Now, the Columbia University professor of law, general counsel for the FSF (Free Software Foundation) and one of the main authors of the GPLv3 is leaving the FSF and the GPLv3 behind.

In a blog entry entitled “And Now … Life After GPLv3,” Moglen wrote that for him and for his “colleague Richard Fontana, after months of living and breathing GPLv3, the weathers beginning to change.”

/zimages/1/28571.gifTo read more about Moglens perspective on the effort to draft GPL Version 3,click here.

Moglen continued, “The release of Discussion Draft 3 has been greeted as warmly as I dared hope” and while “I thought, and continue to think, that it would serve beautifully as the final GPLv3… I agree with RMS [Richard Stallman] that it was very important to add another cycle of public discussion, and Im sure the Free Software Foundation will be making some changes based on that discussion, as it has in response to comments all along.

“But I think the big issues have been correctly addressed, and that the detail work—which as lawyers we have to take more seriously than everyone else—is ready for the pressure of reality.”

Therefore, Moglen said, it is time to start thinking “about life after GPLv3.”

/zimages/1/28571.gifRead the full story on Linux-Watch: Moglen Ascends to Life After GPLv3

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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

I'm editor-at-large for Ziff Davis Enterprise. That's a fancy title that means I write about whatever topic strikes my fancy or needs written about across the Ziff Davis Enterprise family of publications. You'll find most of my stories in Linux-Watch, DesktopLinux and eWEEK. Prior to becoming a technology journalist, I worked at NASA and the Department of Defense on numerous major technological projects.

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