Want to fix a licensing problem for a GPLv2 or LGPLv2.x program? Relicense under GPLv3 or later, or under AGPLv3 or later. Consider LGPLv3 or later carefully before use, erring on the side of picking the GNU GPL v3 or later. This will grant recipients of the program the more lenient terms which do a good job of covering accidental infringement while still being able to legally compel other infringers to stop their infringement until they come into compliance.

This zdnet.com article bears the bias of coming from corporate media; it implicitly highlights the difference between free software (a social movement based in how people ought to treat one another with regard to computer software) and open source (a means for businesses to see free software hackers as an exploitable source of gratis labor by divesting the ethical underpinning of free software, pitched primarily to businesses). But no clear distinction is drawn so it’s not easy to see past the business-first talk that is not in keeping with why the GPLs exist, who wrote the GPLs, and why the GPLs say what they do.

For example, consider this from the article

In 2007, Microsoft was very openly and publicly anti-GPLv3, claiming it was an attempt “to tear down the bridge between proprietary and open source technology that Microsoft has worked to build with the industry and customers.”

This short-sighted comment receives no examination in the article but certainly deserves some since the entire “cure” is to do what the GPLv3 has long done—make it easier for accidental or non-malicious infringement to be fixed, thus allowing distributors to come into compliance, and continue distribution under compliance.

Microsoft’s words ignore that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) wrote the GPLs. The FSF is focused on software freedom (specifically a user’s freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software). Richard Stallman is credited as the chief author of the GPLs v1-3. Stallman also started the free software movement. Open source advocates, in what Stallman once called a right-wing counter to free software, want to use GPLv2 and GPLv3 (and related licenses) without talking about the ethical basis for these licenses and their derivatives (AGPL and LGPL).

Microsoft’s language would have you believe this is all to do with business concerns because that’s the open source enthusiast’s primary audience. But how a copyright holder behaves in light of infringement concerns anyone who distributes copyrighted works including any copyrighted free, libre, and open source software under any FLOSS license.

Microsoft essentially wants what any other proprietor (Apple, Oracle, Intel, etc.) want: more hackers writing and distributing code under licenses that allow proprietors to make proprietary derivatives. The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or GPL) say no to that; the GNU GPLs versions 1-3 say we should be equals in this work and all users must be free to run, inspect, share, and modify the program. No privileged position (such as is the nature of proprietary software) allowed. The “Lesser GPL” (originally the Library GPL) puts in an exception that grants a bit more inequity for software where there are plenty of other implementations that would get used more and possibly do less to protect a user’s software freedom (such as C libraries). The Affero GPL protects a user’s software freedom for remotely run applications such as web-based programs.

Any evaluation of software that excludes the underlying ethical (and class-based!) examination free software provides is bound to favor proprietors. That’s why proprietors all like “open source” but don’t frame anything in terms of free software. Software freedom has at its heart the very thing that keeps would-be proprietors honest and keeps users informed about changes, and in power over their own computers. Proprietary software is a social ill, never to be trusted, and a degree of control even other proprietors merely tolerate because they can’t easily object (‘power for me but not for thee’ doesn’t fly amongst those jockeying for power over one’s users).