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Microsoft may wish that it were above the law, but the Free Software Foundation has issued a press release calling Microsoft to repentance for its efforts to deny GPLv3's hold on it.

We do not...agree with Microsoft's characterization of the situation involving GPLv3. Microsoft cannot by any act of anticipatory repudiation divest itself of its obligation to respect others' copyrights. If Microsoft distributes our works licensed under GPLv3, or pays others to distribute them on its behalf, it is bound to do so under the terms of that license. It may not do so under any other terms; it cannot declare itself exempt from the requirements of GPLv3.

... Read more

(Credit: Palamida)

I'm actually surprised that adoption of GPLv3 continues at such a steady pace. This week it's up 14 percent over last week, which is impressive, given that the base upon which it has to build continues to grow.

As of August 17, Palamida's research indicates that 378 projects have officially adopted GPLv3, as compared to 332 projects on August 10, 2007. An additional eight projects have adopted LGPLv3, bringing the total LGPLv3 projects to 21.

In addition, there are currently 4,748 projects with licenses that now read "GPL v2 or LGPL v2.1 or later." For a complete list of projects that have adopted GPLv3 and LGPLv3, see http://gpl3.palamida.com.

Thanks to Palamida for tracking this and updating us on a regular basis.

This just in from Palamida: roughly 50 percent of active projects licensed under the GPL are now GPLv3. In just one month. That's huge.

How does Palamida reach this number? Keeping in mind that the total number of projects on Sourceforge is actually poor context to determine the number of useful, living projects that you or I care about:

Update: this blog incorrectly represented Compiere's position on the GPLv3, which the company has not yet announced. That paragraph has been deleted.

SugarCRM intends to adopt the General Public License version 3 for a forthcoming update of its open-source applications.

Sugar Community Edition 5.0, scheduled to go into beta in a few weeks and be released in September of this year, will use GPLv3, the company said on Wednesday. Its current products use either the Mozilla Public License (MPL) or the very similar Microsoft Community License (Ms-CL), according to SugarCRM CEO John Roberts.

One of the advantages of the GPLv3 is it makes it easier for people to share code from different GPL-controlled open-source projects, Roberts said. At the same time, SugarCRM is able to offer customers of its Professional edition a typical commercial license, where people can see the product's source code but cannot distribute it, he added.

"My hope is that it becomes a global standard," Roberts said.

The company's decision to use the GPLv3 is an endorsement for the latest edition of the most commonly used open-source and free software license.

Finalized in late June, GPLv3 places tougher restrictions on software patents and a provision to prevent "patent protection" deals like the one between Microsoft and Novell. During its development, it drew criticisms from high-profile open-source participants, including developers of the Linux kernel.

But since its release, open-source projects have started to voice plans to adopt it.

Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz has said he hopes GPLv3 can be Sun's unifying open-source software license, but so far the company hasn't released its two highest-profile open-source sofware projects, Java and OpenSolaris, under GPLv3.

Open-source database company MySQL has said it will wait to see how the license is received before deciding whether to move its open-source database of the same name from GPLv2 to GPLv3.

Some important projects are moving to GPLv3 with their next versions. Among them are Samba, used to share files over Windows networks, and the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection), a widely used programming tool, according to a project leader on the GCC mailing list.

--CNET News.com's Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.

Palamida has been tracking the movement of open-source projects from GPLv2 to GPLv3 and estimates that 119 projects have converted (to GPL/LGPLv3), which represents less than 1 percent of projects using the General Public License, or GPL. Nothing to write home about, in other words.

Why is the uptake so tepid? Well, the rampant FUD around version 3 probably helped, but I don't think that's the main issue. I actually think the primary problem is that GPLv3 didn't go far enough, in many ways. It's an updated version of GPLv2, which is good, but it doesn't resolve some of the industry's most pressing issues, like the ASP loophole.

Instead, it tackles DRM (digital rights management), TiVo and other such issues that are salient to the Free Software Foundation but not so much to most of us.

Still, it's a good license, and I think the adoption will continue and accelerate as people grok it better. I particularly think that it will find adherents in companies and communities that have used quasi-open-source licenses. It allows for reasonable attribution, for one thing, which may serve to obviate the whole debate over Mozilla Public License (MPL) plus attribution.

This post by Microsoft (disclaiming its need to adhere to GPLv3) has me depressed. Not because of what it portends for open source, but because of how dumb it makes the company look, as Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet points out. Not to mention that it makes Novell look really dumb for trusting Microsoft to play nicely. (But then, that foolishness was never in doubt.)

Still, Novell has just released this response to Microsoft's position:

Shortly after the GPLv3 license was released, Microsoft issued a statement in which they expressed their view that Microsoft is not a party to the GPLv3 and it is therefore not applicable to them. Yesterday, they also articulated that, "to avoid any doubt or legal debate on this issue, Microsoft has decided that the Novell support certificates that we distribute to customers will not entitle the recipient to receive from Novell, or any other party, any subscription for support and updates that includes the receipt of any code licensed under GPLv3."

Microsoft's current position, taken unilaterally, is intended to eliminate any perceived ambiguity about the applicability of GPLv3 to Microsoft. Nonetheless and independent of Microsoft's position, we would like to make clear our commitment to our customers that Novell will continue to distribute SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with its full set of functionality and features, including those components that are licensed under GPLv3.

In other words, we'll carry the water for Microsoft since they really have turned out to be a terrible Linux partner. Who knew?

PJ at Groklaw rightly castigates Microsoft for backing out of its commitment. Stephe Walli goes one step further, chastising Microsoft for foolishly backing out of an entire future (which might well be perfectly rosy for Microsoft):

The Free Software Foundation last week released the third version of the GNU General Public License-- GPL 3 (also known as GPLv3).

This CNET News article explains the new features of GPL 3, which the FSF hopes will be adopted by most open-source developers in place of the GPL 2 license. The older GPL 2 will remain available, however.

FSF founder and president Richard M. Stallman has devoted his entire career to making free software--and to making software free. A strong opponent of copyrights, patents, digital-rights management, and all other legal or technical constructs that limit the freedom of software developers and users, Stallman personally developed Emacs, the GNU compilers and debugger, and other programs of key importance in the computer industry.

According to the FSF's press release, the new license provides stronger protection for the freedom of users and improves compatibility with other free-software licenses.

In practice, GPL 3 will also restrict the freedom of some developers and reduce compatibility with commercial licenses.

GPL 3, for example, says that if a commercial device uses GPL 3-licensed code, it must allow modified versions of that code to be used on the device. TiVo, for example, uses GPL 2-licensed code, but prohibits modified code from being used on its products to help protect recorded TV programs from unauthorized redistribution. In such situations, GPL 3 is less "free" than GPL 2 and unacceptable for some commercial platforms.

The FSF also updated GPL 3 to prevent patent deals like that between Microsoft and Novell. I'm no lawyer, but I'm not sure the new license achieves this goal. It's a good bet that Microsoft, Novell and other companies targeted by these changes haven't pointed out any weaknesses in the new language, anyway.

One key test for GPL 3 will be whether it is accepted by Linus Torvalds, originator and coordinator of Linux kernel development. If the Linux kernel stays under GPL 2, other programs commonly associated with Linux probably will too. The many components of Linux that come from the GNU project, however, will presumably move to GPL 3. If a single Linux distribution has both GPL 2 and GPL 3 components, Linux software development will gain a legal complexity it has not previously had.

According to the FSF, all parts of a single program have to be under the same version of the GPL--but what constitutes a program? No doubt there's a definite answer, but do all developers know the answer? This wasn't much of a problem when GPL 2 came out, since it was generally agreed v2 was better than v1, and pretty much everything was moved over to v2. But the disadvantages of GPL 3 for commercial applications will force some hard choices.

I think we're about to find out whether Stallman and the FSF have gone too far in their campaign against intellectual property. Freedom isn't anarchy. True freedom includes the ability to enter into agreements that limit our future options when we believe that's in our interest.

The debate over free software is full of phrases like "free as in beer" (for things of value provided at no cost) and "free as in speech" (for actions which one has the moral right to take). To these, Stallman added the self-contradictory "free as in freedom"-- his idea of "free" being inconsistent with freedom in the ordinary sense, which entails responsibilities such as the obligation to honor one's commitments.

Now it's time to add another phrase to the list: "free as in free software," meaning the freedom to make adversaries of potential partners-- the kind of freedom one has when one's work must be carefully excluded from other people's projects. It seems to me that one of the world's biggest opponents of copyrights and patents has simply found another way to achieve the same results.