THE VIDEO SHELF · gpl licensing
Linus Torvalds says GPL v3 violates everything that GPLv2 stood for
A short TFiR clip of Linus Torvalds explaining why he thinks GPLv3 violates what GPLv2 stood for. He describes why he chose GPLv2 for kernel development and his view of the FSF's approach.
Why HN readers recommended it
Cited again and again in GPL licensing debates as the primary source for Linus's objections to GPLv3.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- TFiR
- Topic
- gpl licensing
- Format
- interview
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 20
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2015–2025
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Here is an excellent video of Linus talking about why he specifically chose the GPLv2 and how he felt betrayed when the FSF released GPLv3: [VIDEO]
rkowalick on Hacker News · 2018-01
In Antique BeOS Content by Scot Hacker (2011)Well, I don't think I agree with him and would licence GPL code with the "or later" clause, but he has a very reasonable and convincing argument against it. See this video of him explaining his take on GPLv3 and the "or later" clause at …
jraph on Hacker News · 2021-09
In 60x speed-up of Linux “perf”
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.