The GPLv3 draft is the first released since Novell signed its controversial agreement with Microsoft last November that involved patent sharing and marketing between the companies platforms.
The Novell-Microsoft tie-up left large sections of the open source community horrified.
The GPLv3 includes new patent requirements that were added to prevent distributors from colluding with patent holders to provide discriminatory protection from patents – measures that take a swipe at the Novell-Microsoft deal.
In launching the draft, FSF president and GNU GPL’s principal author Richard Stallman opened up with both barrels.
“The GPL was designed to ensure that all users of a program receive the four essential freedoms which define free software,” Mr Stallman said. “These freedoms allow you to run the program as you see fit, study and adapt it for your own purposes, redistribute copies to help your neighbour, and release your improvements to the public.”
“The recent patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell aims to undermine these freedoms. In this draft we have worked hard to prevent such deals from making a mockery of free software.”
Novell responded by saying there was nothing in the new draft that would force it to change the way it does business.
“Nothing in this new draft of GPL3 inhibits Novell’s ability to include GPL3 technologies in SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, and other Novell open source offerings, now and in the future,” Novell executive Bruce Lowry posted on the company’s blog.
“This is good news for our customers.”
“We are firmly committed to continuing the partnership with Microsoft and, as we always have, fully complying with the terms of the licenses for the software that we ship, including software licensed under GPL3,” Mr Lowry said.
FSF said the GPLv3 draft incorporated feedback from the public, from official discussion committees, and from two international conferences held in India and Japan.
The draft will be open for discussion for sixty days.
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