Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the Free Software Foundation finally ratified and released the new version of the GPL at the end of June. This marks the newest chapter in the history of one of open source (and free) software’s oldest and most venerated licenses.
Want to read every word of the long and complicated terms and conditions? Have at it. Prefer a brief explanation of its basic talking points? Then you’re at the right article. We happen to know a guy who knows a lot about this stuff–his name is Luis Villa, and he’s hacked on a few Linux projects in his day. Like Evolution PIM, the GNOME 2.0 release (in collaboration with Sun), and the Novell and Ximian desktop projects. And now he’s going to law school. The perfect cross-section for license-explaining.