
Members of the Free Software Foundation communicated that the GNU GPLv3 would be incompatible with the recent Novell-Microsoft patent indemnification agreement. Or: the agreement would infringe the GPLv3. GPLv3 is a draft license and the new patent provisions of the GPLv3 draft face strong criticism. Many free software developers including Linus Torvalds already announced that they would not adopt the GPLv3 because they dissent with the draft provisions.
Now Richard Stallman clarifies that THE GNU GPL, the GPLv2 is compatible with the agreement.
The FSF spin was
- agreement infringes GPLv3
- agreement is compatible with GPLv2
- conclusion: GPLv3 is good because it prevents MS-Novell
But it could also be easily interpreted differently.
- agreement is compatible with GPLv2
- agreement is incompatible with GPLv3 draft
- conclusion: Novell cannot support the GPLv3 and GPLv3 will require a revision