GPLv3 upgrade set for Friday

A controversial update to the GNU GPL (General Public License) is set to be released Friday by the Free Software Foundation, a representative of the organization said on Tuesday.

GPL version 3 is arriving 16 years after version 2 of the license for open-source software. Questions remain, however, about who exactly will adopt it.

Among improvements is a copyright technology not found anywhere in the world with the goal of providing uniformity in different jurisdictions, said Brett Smith, licensing compliance engineer for the foundation.

"There's a lot of copyright laws that talk about distribution, but they don't mean the same thing," in different places, he said.

GPLv3 upgrade set for Friday.