The problem here is that the GPLv3 has more requirements of the licensee than the GPLv2 does, but the GPLv2 says "you may not impose any further restrictions on

The problem here is that the GPLv3 has more requirements of the licensee than the GPLv2 does, but the GPLv2 says "you may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein". Some extra requirements of licensees of GPLv3 programs: - Preventing tivoization: they must provide information on how to install and execute modified versions of anything they build with the code, when they provide the corresponding source; - Preventing DRM: anything they build with the code won't be legally considered a DRM system, and they "waive any legal power to forbid circumvention" of that system; - Protecting against patents: they must provide every recipient of the program (in source or binary) with any patent licenses necessary to exercise the rights that the GPL gives them, and if they try to use a patent suit to stop another user from exercising those rights, their license will be terminated. I would place the blame of this situation at the maintainers of the GPLv2-only libraries: why don't they want to use a license that prevents tivoization, DRM, and patent abuse? If they've changed their minds on copyleft, why not switch to the BSD license? I'm not sure exactly what the LibreDWG developers asked of Stallman, but if it was to change the GPLv2 or GPLv3, that's stupid. Even if he did, it wouldn't help their situation. On the trollish title: the GPLv3 stifling "open-source" development? Really? (Edit: the title has since been changed) Let's talk about how all the non-copyleft licenses let companies run off with the code to build their own systems behind closed doors, and only contribute what they want, when they want -- if at all? How does that support free software development? I'm licensing my projects under the AGPLv3, because I believe that nonfree software is harmful, and I don't want to contribute to its development at all. I believe that a free society must necessarily operate on free software. I want to encourage the development of free software, and discourage the development of nonfree software. The GPL was designed to ensure that the software stays free software; "to ensure that every user has freedom". The GPL's protections may have sufficed in 1990, but they don't in 2014. The GPL doesn't consider users of a web service to be users of the software implementing that server. Thankfully, the AGPL does. The AGPL ensures that if the code is used to implement a web service, then the entire source code of that web service must be free software. This way, I'm not contributing to nonfree software, whether it's executed locally or provided over a network.