GPL 3???

Mark Wilcox m_p_wilcox at yahoo.co.uk
Tue Apr 23 17:22:41 EDT 2013


GPLv2 is more or less the same as v3 from a patents perspective if I remember correctly. As a contributor, you grant anyone using the code a royalty free patent license to any related patents you hold if they use the code under the GPL. The changes related to patents were about cross-licensing deals. Unless RunRev have a big stack of patents to cross-license with another tools vendor I can't see an issue.

The other thing in the GPLv3 was that the FSF didn't like all the hardware folks dodging the GPLv2 for their Linux mods and drivers under various flimsy arguments and locking down bootloaders so that even if they did give you the software you couldn't update the device. They wrote a new version that was explicit about software distributed in the firmware of a device. However the Linux kernel folks didn't want to scare all the companies away and decided they'd rather stay with v2 and continue to tolerate closed drivers and locked boot loaders. That effectively made the difference between v2 and v3 irrelevant for most people, since the main project the changes had been designed around decided not to use them. However, making LiveCode GPLv3 means no major OEM is likely to embed it in their devices without paying for a commercial license to do so, which is probably a very good thing. 

In general the GPL is a horrible mess that makes most corporate legal departments want to run a mile.


More information about the use-livecode mailing list