GPL 3: An Open-Source Earthquake?

Where's GPL 3 Headed?
Everyone agrees that whatever happens with GPL 3, its effects will take time to propagate. "I don't think it's going to, by any means, be a rapid cutover," said Mark Tolliver, CEO of Palamida, which makes software that vets code for licensing compliance. "I also think there will be some forking."

Navica's Golden said he's bracing for a schism. "I think there will be many organizations that will say, 'We will not accept GPL 3 software in our organization,' and there will be a lot that will say, 'We're going to wait and see.' I think it will be a slow acceptance," he said.

It may take years, but some industry influentials think the two sides will ultimately lay down their guns and mutually embrace GPL 3. The software industry's history is littered with cases of impassioned, vicious stand-offs that finally ended in compromise.

An eventual detente is what open-source evangelist Bruce Perens predicts. "There's usually about a two-year cycle where Linus [Torvalds] and some people have trouble with something, and then they work it out," said Perens, who co-founded the Open Source Initiative. "Despite their kicking and screaming, they eventually will go to GPL 3."

MySQL also expects the new license to eventually win over its doubters. "Industry players would not have devoted so many of their senior-most legal resources toward this process, had they not thought of GPLv3 one day becoming a widely adopted license," Arno said.

Sun's Phipps hopes that diplomacy will triumph. The GPL 3 drafting process is more open than its detractors fear, and the license being hammered out is a solid, practical tool for protecting the developer freedoms that the free- and open-source communities value, he said.

"I look at GPL 3, and I think it's going to be the foundation for a free software ecosystem," Phipps said. "There is still the potential for it be a unifying and not a dividing force. But for that to take place, there has to be a desire for unity."