General Public License Version 3: A Legal View

The final version of the General Public License Version 3 (“GPLv3) published on June 29th is a significant improvement over General Public License Version 2 (“GPLv2”) and deserves to have broad acceptance. In fairness to GPLv2, the GPLv2 was drafted in 1991: both the law relating to software and the manner in which software is developed and distributed has changed significantly since 1991. I was actively involved in the process as the Chair of Committee C, the committee representing users, and it is very satisfying that the hard work of the Free Software Foundation, Committee C and the other committees has reached such a successful conclusion (even though not all of our suggestions were accepted).

General Public License Version 3: A Legal View.