The Free Software Foundation launched GPLv3 yesterday. You can read the wording of the license in its final form.
What does it mean for software developers and indie developers in particular? I don’t know. The GPLv2 was written over a decade ago, and this new version deals with software in the face of new technologies such as the World Wide Web. I know a number of businesses participated in the discussions so any silly arguments about the license being a tool for communism can hopefully be put to rest.
“By hearing from so many different groups in a public drafting process, we have been able to write a license that successfully addresses a broad spectrum of concerns. But even more importantly, these different groups have had an opportunity to find common ground on important issues facing the free software community today, such as patents, tivoization, and Treacherous Computing,†said the Foundation’s executive director, Peter Brown.
I am sure people will be talking about what the new license means and how it is different from GPLv2 for weeks to come.