In June of 2007, after many months delay, the Free Software Software Foundation released GPLv3. Since that time, the license has been gaining an increased following, but without much threat to GPLv2 in first place.

Distributors lose their rights when they violate GPLv2, but the Free Software Foundation is more forgiving in its license enforcement to encourage continued participation in the free software community. GPLv3 has improved termination provisions to codify this approach, giving developers one more reason to upgrade.

"Many open source projects have been licensed under GPLv2, and while the open source world at large is on-board with free software and the ideal of free distribution, it is less concerned with the FSF's social movement to provide software freedom to all users. Consequently, most new features of GPLv3 address issues geared first toward protecting the rights of end users."

How is the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3) being received four months after its official release?

A lengthy debate that began with a suggestion to dual license the Linux kernel under the GPLv2 and the GPLv3 [story] continues on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Throughout the ongoing thread Linux creator Linus Torvalds has spoken out on the GPLv2, the upcoming GPLv3, the BSD license, Tivo, the Free Software Foundation, and much more.

"BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA—Monday, November 19, 2007—The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today published the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (GNU AGPLv3).

The third version of the GNU General Public License (GPL) won't be released until the end of June. Yet, already, it is proving one of the most controversial developments ever in the free and open source software (FOSS) communities.

Late, and over a year in development, the GNU General Public License version three (GPLv3) is finally here. The GPL is important as it's the most widely used Free Software license, with around seventy percent of Free Software released under its terms.

Oslo, Norway, 18 January - 2008 - Trolltech ASA is licensing its Qt cross-platform development framework under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPL v3), with immediate effect.

Qt is already available under the GPL v2 and will continue to be so in addition to the GPL v3.

The GPL v3 license will make it easy and safe for free software developers to use Trolltech’s Qt with the most recent license framework from the Free Software Foundation. Trolltech hopes that its move will inspire free software projects to use GPL v3 when programming with Qt.