(And in the day and age of locked hardware, I think the GPLv3 is the only sane license as a result. Free Software dies if nobody can actually run it.)
There are other open source licenses that have patent grants, Apache 2, if I remember correctly... so if you are GPL-adverse, you can still be covered by good open source licenses.
I'm sorry but the GPLv3 (and worse, the AGPL) are the shittiest passive-aggressive 'Free' software licenses yet written. They're just clickwrap EULAs, since you can't enforce the restrictions they add on top of the GPLv2 via copyright law.
It's funny to see the same people who wanked long and hard of restrictions on crypto turn around and try to impose their own restrictions on the same by ideological fiat.
They're just clickwrap EULAs, since you can't enforce the restrictions they add on top of the GPLv2 via copyright law.
Sure you can. Under copyright law, you can't distribute copyrighted code without permission. You also can't distribute derived works; binaries produced by your compiler. The GPLv3 grants everyone permission to copy, compile, and redistribute, as long as they give others the same permission, promise not to sue the people they give the code to, and promise not to ship the code on hardware that can't run modified versions of the code. That fits perfectly into the framework of copyright law. If you don't like the conditions of the GPLv3, you fall back to copyright law -- you can't distribute binaries or modified versions at all.
EULAs rely on a much shadier principle; that you "redistribute" a copyrighted work when you copy it from your disk into memory. Copyright law says, the lawyers reckon, that you can't make that copy unless you are given permission. You are given permission by following the EULA.
You can see that this is not quite the same as the GPL because of the scope. EULAs say copying is how your computer runs programs. The GPL says copying is making a copy for your friend. Much more solid.
Anyway, if you don't like software licenses, don't use one. I like the GPL, though, because I want people to give me back what I gave them. Nice people will do that anyway, but not everyone is nice. So the GPL clearly spells out their obligations to me, and lets them make an informed decision as to whether or not they want to modify and redistribute my software. The nice people follow the rules anyway, so the GPL makes no difference to them.
Are you a nice person?
I don't see anything wrong with a condition like that. If you don't like it, you're free to negotiate proprietary licensing terms with the author, or write your own, or find other software. It's certainly no worse than the license most startups use, "All Rights Reserved".
