* FSF to revamp GNU GPL
The Free Software Foundation last week said it will begin the process of revamping its venerable GNU General Public License in January, when it releases the first draft of GPLv3, at a forum to take place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massl.
The update to the GPL is long overdue, some say. The last update to the license was in 1991, which, in the realm of computer technology, is a very long time. Crafters of the license say the new version will address some of the issues of open source software license compatibly, which they say hampers the development of hybrid software built on various hybrids of open source code. Some open source licenses make it hard to mix code with GPL-based software. This is something the FSF hopes to fix.
The open source industry is clearly different from when Richard Stallman drafted the first GPL and started the FSF in the mid-1980s. There is also a small-scale industry of companies aiming to simplify the mess of open source licenses, led by vendors such as BlackDuck Software, which offer licensing compliance and management services and tools for users of open source code. IDC estimates that the worldwide market for open source software, associated hardware, support and services was around $15.3 billion in 2004, and will grow to around $38 billion by 2008. Whatever tweaks are made to the GPL, the factors of money, influence from vendors and corporations with heavy investments in GPL-based products will have to be considered – issues that simply were not present at the creation of the GPL.
