Linus Torvalds said Wednesday that he won't convert Linux to version 3 of the General Public License, as he objects to digital rights management provisions in the proposed update.
The position is a significant--though not entirely unexpected--rejection of the update, the first to the seminal license in 15 years. Linux, the kernel at the heart of an operating system that clones much of generally proprietary Unix, is considered the best-known and most successful example of open-source software.
"Conversion isn't going to happen," Torvalds said in a posting to the Linux kernel mailing list. "I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code."
Torvalds specifically objected to one new provision in the GPL 3 draft that opposes digital rights management, which is technology that uses encryption to control the use of content and running of software. "I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn't do it," he said.
The GPL is a legal document and manifesto of the free software and open-source movements. It outlines several freedoms for collaborative software development, stipulating that a program's underlying source code may be seen, copied, modified and distributed.
News source:
ieXbeta
Full story:
View Here
Linear Mode
