Have GPL issues been overtaken by events?
Eben Moglen, Hewlett-Packard, Linus Torvalds have been debating merits and demerits of the latest draft of the General Public License (GPL), which governs innumerable open-source projects.
But Tim O'Reilly, chief executive of publisher O'Reilly and Associates and a longtime open-source software supporter, believes they're debating yesterday's issues.
In his blog Tuesday, O'Reilly argued that interactive Internet services are where much programming and software activity takes place.
"Because (open-source licenses') conditions are all triggered by the act of software distribution, they fail to apply to many of the most important types of software today, namely Web 2.0 applications and other forms of software as a service." O'Reilly said. "What we need is a new 'open services definition."
The GPL's reciprocity requirements--you may change the source code, but if you distribute the new version you have to share the changes--don't apply when modified projects are being hosted on the Web as a service rather that distributed to other programmers.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
