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The GPLv3 served two main purposes: 1) Prevent Tivoization[0]. As noted below, it could be argued that the GPLv2 already forbade this, but that is left up to l
by chimeracoder 13y ago
The GPLv3 served two main purposes:
1) Prevent Tivoization[0]. As noted below, it could be argued that the GPLv2 already forbade this, but that is left up to legal interpretation (which did not always agree in practice). So they made this explicit in the GPLv3.
2) Allow interoperability between the different "flavors" of the GPL. The GPL comes in three "flavors" - regular, lesser, and Affero. Under v2, projects using the regular GPL could not be combined with projects using the Affero GPL. Under v3, all three of these can be safely mixed.
(Essentially, for v3, each of the "flavors" includes an explicit exception for the other two, if I remember correctly).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization