General Public License 3.0: Hacking the Free Software Movement's Constitution
Robert W. Gomulkiewicz · Houston Law Review · 2005
This Article explores the substantive changes that the FSF is considering for GPL 3.0 and offers some approaches that the drafters could take. It then explains that the FSF intends to make only minimal changes to the GPL’s form, and argues that failing to modify the GPL’s form ignores one of the chief complaints about the GPL—that it is too wordy and unwieldy. Thus, the Article proposes a new form, called the Simple Public License, which could serve as a model for a simplified GPL. As background, this Article begins with a brief software tutorial, a description of the principles of “free software,” and a history of the GPL.