Roy Schestowitz wrote:
Nothing is wrong with the GPLv2.
While much of the coversation has drifted towards Tivoization, which is
the more controversial part of the licence, I worry more about other
aspects, such as software patents. There are companies with very broad
patent portfolios and even prior art would cost a fortune to get hold of
and show in a court a law. To give you an example, a company called
Blackboard 'owns' the genius that is having different roles in a CMS,
which facilitates different access privileges. As patent trolling
constantly reaches an all-time high (the popularity of WordPress
likewise), it is worth thinking ahead.
I may be missing something here. Are you saying converting WP to GPL3
will somehow protect WP from patent trolling? That's all I can infer
from the above, and if so, that's (patently) not true. ;)
If you develop software, free or otherwise, and someone has a patent on
process/tech, they can still come after you. How you license your code
doesn't 'protect' you from infringing on others. Now, if some other
company releases software that is GPL3, and contains patented or
patentable processes/tech, I would assume from the back and forth on the
topic that GPL3 basically 'gives away' the patent rights to any user of
the code.
All this with the caveat: I haven't read the GPL3 as yet, don't plan to
any time soon. ;) ;)
-d
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