Large enterprise users of free software often contract with non-employee

developers, often working offsite, to make modifications intended for

the user's private or internal use, and often arrange with other

companies to operate their data centers.  Whether GPLv2 permits these

activities is not clear and may depend on variations in copyright law.

The practices seem basically harmless, so we have decided to make it

clear they are permitted.

GPLv3 now gives an explicit permission for a client to provide a copy of

its modified software to a contractor exclusively for that contractor to

modify it further, or run it, on behalf of the client.  However, the

client can only exercise this control over its own copyrighted changes

to the GPL-covered program.  The parts of the program it obtained from

other contributors must be provided to the contractor with the usual GPL

freedoms.

This permission is stated in section 2.  It permits a user to convey

covered works to contractors operating exclusively on the user's behalf,

under the user's direction and control, and to require the contractors

to keep the user's copyrighted changes confidential, but only if the

contractor is limited to acting on the user's behalf, just as the user's

employees would have to act.

The strict conditions in this provision are needed so that it cannot be

twisted to fit other activities, such as making a program available to

users or customers.  By making the limits on this provision very narrow,

we ensure that in all other cases the contractor gets the full freedoms

of the GPL.

This section shields users from being subjected to liability under

anti-circumvention law for exercising their rights under the GPL, so far as

the GPL can do so.  Some readers seem to have assumed that this provision

contains a prohibition on DRM; it does not (no part of GPLv3 forbids DRM).

we have replaced the Magnuson-Moss

reference with three sentences that encapsulate the judicial and

administrative principles established over the past three decades in the

United States concerning the Magnuson-Moss consumer product definition.

First, we state that doubtful cases are resolved in favor of coverage

under the definition.  Second, we indicate that the words ``normally

used'' in the consumer product definition refer to a typical or common

use of a class of product, and not the status of a particular user or

expected or actual uses by a particular user.  Third, we make clear that

the existence of substantial non-consumer uses of a product does not

negate a determination that it is a consumer product, unless such

non-consumer uses represent the only significant mode of use of that

product.

It should be clear from these added sentences that it is the general

mode of use of a product that determines objectively whether or not it

is a consumer product.  One could not escape the effects of the User

Products provisions by labeling what is demonstrably a consumer product

in ways that suggest it is ``for professionals,'' for example, contrary

to what some critics of Draft 3 have suggested.

We have made one additional change to the User Products provisions of

section 6.  In Draft 3 we made clear that the requirement to provide

Installation Information implies no requirement to provide warranty or

support for a work that has been modified or installed on a User

Product.  The Final Draft adds that there is similarly no requirement to

provide warranty or support for the User Product itself.

The main reason for this is tactical.  We believe we can do more to

protect the community by allowing Novell to use software under GPL

version 3 than by forbidding it to do so.  This is because of

paragraph 6 of section 11 (corresponding to paragraph 4 in Draft 3).

It will apply, under the Microsoft/Novell deal, because of the coupons

that Microsoft has acquired that essentially commit it to participate

in the distribution of the Novell SLES GNU/Linux system.

Microsoft is scrambling to dispose of as many Novell SLES coupons as

possible prior to the adoption of GPLv3.  Unfortunately for Microsoft,

those coupons bear no expiration date, and paragraph 6 has no cut-off

date.  Through its ongoing distribution of coupons, Microsoft will

have procured the distribution of GPLv3-covered programs as soon as

they are included in Novell SLES distributions, thereby extending

patent defenses to all downstream recipients of that software by

operation of paragraph 6.

A secondary reason is to avoid affecting other kinds of agreements for

other kinds of activities.  We have tried to take care in paragraph 7

to distinguish pernicious deals of the Microsoft/Novell type from

business conduct that is not particularly harmful, but we cannot be

sure we have entirely succeeded.  There remains some risk that other

unchangeable past agreements could fall within its scope.

In future deals, distributors engaging in ordinary business practices

can structure the agreements so that they do not fall under paragraph

7.  However, it will block Microsoft and other patent aggressors from

further such attempts to subvert parts of our community.