RMS began drafting GPLv2.2 in mid-2002, and FSF ran a few discussion groups

during that era about new text of that license.  However, rampant violations

of the GPL required more immediate attention of FSF's licensing staff, and as

such, much of the early 2000's was spent doing GPL enforcement

work\footnote{More on GPL enforcement is discussed in \tutorialpartsplit{a

    companion tutorial, \texit{A Practical Guide to GPL

      Compliance}}{Part~\ref{gpl-compliance-guide} of this tutorial}.}.  In

2006, FSF began in earnest drafting work for GPLv3.

The GPLv3 process began in earnest in January 2006.  It became clear that

many provisions of the GPL could benefit from modification to fit new

circumstances and to reflect what the entire community learned from

experience with version 2.  Given the scale of revision it seems proper to

approach the work through public discussion in a transparent and accessible

manner.

The GPLv3 process continued through June 2007, culminating in publication of

GPLv3 and LGPLv3 on 29 June 2007, AGPLv3 on 19 November 2007, and the GCC

Runtime Library Exception on 27 January 2009.

All told, four discussion drafts of GPLv3, two discussion drafts of LGPLv3

and two discussion drafts of AGPLv3 were published and discussed.

Ultimately, FSF remained the final arbiter and publisher of the licenses, and

RMS himself their primary author, but input was sought from many parties, and

these licenses do admittedly look and read more like legislation as a result.

Nevertheless, all of the ``v3'' group are substantially better and improved

licenses.