GPLv3 License Marks GNU’s Decline

[ Thanks to Jem
Matzan for this link. ]

“The GNU General Public License version 3 is unleashed to the
world today, ready and willing to conquer perceived problems with
the legal system in the U.S. and other countries. It’s been
carefully considered, debated, and examined by very smart people
with a lot of experience with software license law and advocacy.
Programmers, lawyers, and businesspeople have looked it over and
petitioned changes until most parties were reasonably satisfied
with the result. So today is, ostensibly, GPLv3 release day, but I
think in the future that it will be remembered in a sad sort of
way. We will look back on this and say that June 29, 2007 was the
day when the Free Software Foundation jumped the shark, creating an
impassable chasm where there was already an uncomfortable rift
between the Free Software Foundation and GNU Project, and the
larger free software and open source worlds. The GPLv3 adds
restrictions galore for developers and users alike, none of which
are designed to be understood by the people who matter
most–programmers and users. The FSF tells us that the new
restrictions in the GPLv3, on patents, patent licensing, and
hardware capabilities, are there to make us more free. That’s
right–more restrictions are being forced on us so that we can be
‘more free.’ If that sounds like a big steaming pile of nonsense to
you, then I’m with you, brother…”

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