> No, manufacturers want to use free software, but they are forced to avoid GPLv3 for this reason alone.
good.
It means that GPLv3 works as intended.
EDIT: as intended by the software authors, that chose freely GPLv3 as license, they were not forced to.
I'm quite sure they knew what they were doing.
If car manufacturers want to use GPLv3 software, they simply need to respect the license the author released their software under or rewrite the software.
What's the point of wishing for existing FOSS artifacts (supposedly) "being more widely used" if it stops giving the foundational freedoms to the user?
Free and open source software is not all about "best utility for users". It's about freedoms being valued extremely highly; people self-select for being or not being the consumers of it.
What is a "freedom" is highly subjective. For example the GPL doesn't enable the "freedom" to create proprietary derivative products or tivoized products. Why is that better than the "freedom" to flash their firmware? It is just a matter of opinion.
> If by that you mean preventing free software from being more widely used
That's false.
It simply prevents the Tivoization.
GPLv3 was created exactly with the purpose of preventing free software from becoming a commodity.
There's a cost involved when you use free software:
- the software must stay free
- if you include software licensed under a FOSS license, you have to adhere to the license terms
simple as that.
If the authors of software X or Y chose the GPLv3 as license I imagine they were completely aware and agreed to the terms of the license they used, including the limitations it enforces.
> If the authors of software X or Y chose the GPLv3 as license I imagine they were completely aware and agreed to the terms of the license they used, including the limitations it enforces.
That is certainly not universally true. It is common, but not universally true.
And we should assume that the authors were NOT aware of real ecosystem implications of licenses - because nobody understands these in detail. I've been trying to understand them since the mid 1990s when I started contributing in a BSD environment, and I won't say that I properly understand them. I understand parts of them, but I don't understand all of them.
good.
It means that GPLv3 works as intended.
EDIT: as intended by the software authors, that chose freely GPLv3 as license, they were not forced to.
I'm quite sure they knew what they were doing.
If car manufacturers want to use GPLv3 software, they simply need to respect the license the author released their software under or rewrite the software.