GPL is no longer on the FSF website | Hacker News Reader

GPL is no longer on the FSF website

gnu.org

...aaaand we're back!

Probably was just a mistake, and has now been fixed, as the link structure on the page now points to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html (note the 3.0 addition).

The original link submitted here (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) also forwards to that URL now.

Note that that's the same redirect it had been doing for a long time (except for a bit earlier today).

I'm not sure what happened, since the relevant file hasn't been committed to in a while: https://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/www/www/licenses/.sy...

They are here https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/old-licenses.html

It's indicative of the rift between FSF and Linux developers that the GPL v2 is on the "Old Licenses" page and "kept here for reference." I'll understate this; Linux is a fairly important project that still uses the GPL v2 license.

Only because Linus supports tivoization.

And because Linus just does not give a fuck. He is an engineer, not a politician, and the GPLv2 to this day is serving its purpose, and Linux‘ success proves him right.

Might makes right, after all.

Unless you have a parallel universe generator, I'm not sure how you could prove that sticking to the GPLv2 has been more successful than moving to V3.

Its success proves that GPL v3 was not needed to spur such success. That's not a judgement on whether v3 is "better" by some measure or other. It's a realistic measure that the modifications in v3 weren't needed for Linux to continue existing and flourishing.

  A != B does not imply that !B = A

Then I misunderstood what the GPP was trying to say, as it read to me that they were saying that Linus was right in sticking to the GPLv2.

My thought is that simply that he wasn't wrong, which is what you are then repeating back to me.

Unless Linus and the team want to re-write a bunch of GPLv2 kernel code (and modules), they are stuck with GPLv2 whether they want to change it or not. Linux is now over 30 and some of the original authors are no longer here to authorize a change in their copyright license.

https://lwn.net/Articles/169158/

Linus on why he doesn't like the GPLv3 - https://youtu.be/PaKIZ7gJlRU

The start of the video:

Q: do you agree that you undermine GPL version 3 and how can I get you to stop

Linus: what

Q: how can we get you to stop

Linus: oh I hate GPL version 3 undermined it on purpose I actually thought the GPL version 3 extensions were horrible. I understand why people would want to do them but I think it should have been a completely new license. My argument for liking version 2 - and I still think version 2 is a great license - was that I give you source code you give me your changes back we're even. Right - that's that's my take on GPL version 2 it's that simple and version 3 extended that in ways that I personally am really uncomfortable with; namely I give you source code that means that if you use that source code you can't use it on your device unless you follow my rules and to me that's that's a violation of everything version 2 stood for ...

Tiviozation is specifically called out 2:33.

Driver compatibility and one way license changes preventing reincorporation of code at 3:30

Linus cared about software, not hardware devices.

Linus chose not to try to define "general purpose computer", Stallman's threshold for what kind of hardware should run Free(Libre) software.

Stallman, usually quite orthodox, had to carve out "general purpose computers" from "legitmiate appliances". He decided that Tivo is a "general purpose computer" but a microwave is not. Linus drew the line at the software/hardware boundary.

Affero GPL is much more interesting, as it closes the "someone else's machine" loophole for the "distribution" trigger. This is more extreme than Tivoization.

It's infeasible for Linux to switch to GPLv3, even if Linus and every Linux dev alive today wanted to, so it's a moot point.

The URL in the posting here used to redirect to GPL3, not to any of the "old licenses".

The indication of that is given by internet archive which recorded that redirect:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230215001250/https://www.gnu.o...

The page OP links to has at the top "LICENSES". If you click on it you go here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html

On that page it says: "We normally use the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), specifying version 3 or any later version, but occasionally we use other free software licenses."

If you click on "GNU General Public License (GNU GPL)" you go to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL which shows GPL v3. And there is a link to older versions here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/old-licenses.html#...

> If you click on "GNU General Public License (GNU GPL)" you go to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL which shows GPL v3.

But the links to the actual license all 404. The HTML link is the one submitted.

Curiously the 404 error message has a link to the current broken page.

It looks like the latest versions (v3) are all there but earlier versions are no longer.

GPLv3 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

LGPLv3 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.html

AGPLv3 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html

FDL 1.3 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html

Looks like an URL reorg, it's now here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-1.0.html

Breaking URLs isn't good; I hope gnu.org fixes this anyway.

That's been the URL for a long time. It's that until a day or so ago, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html did a 302 redirect to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html .

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html has a link to "latest version" which is broken.

The link I gave was for the latest version, not one of the old versions!

As of 2023-05-05 16:54 UTC, it looks like all the links are fixed. Maybe they hastily reverted to an old site version? It looked like they had moved to a new URL structure, but not any more.

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