Why Linus Torvalds Loves GPL v2

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: March 22, 2007]

This is the Torvalds Transcript about - Why he 'Absolutely Love' GPL Version 2.

On March 6, Linus Torvalds responded to e-mail questions on GPL version 3 sent by InformationWeek editor at large Charles Babcock.

Torvalds said:

First off, I don't even know what the GPLv3 will look like. I would be totally crazy to accept a license for my code sight unseen

Oh on a related note this post talks about why GPL should help Microsoft in a long run:

...Some open source licenses don’t readily lend themselves to commercial open source. Apache/BSD licensing, for example, is hard to monetize (directly). But the GPL is very easy to monetize directly: customers get the value they want and competitors are scared to touch it. Everyone (that matters) wins. Microsoft needs to ditch its weird view on the GPL. It used to call it anti-American. It’s actually the exact opposite. It is the most American of open source licenses...

Generally I agree with author but I don’t see M$ opening its Vista or Office 2007 source code in a near future.

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