Over 60 companies have changed the terms of termination for GPLv2 code licenses.

The initiative to increase predictability in the open source software licensing process has been joined by 17 new participants who have agreed to apply softer license revocation terms for their open projects, allowing time to rectify identified violations. The total number of companies signing the agreement has surpassed 60.

New participants signing the agreement GPL Cooperation Commitment: NetApp, Salesforce, Seagate Technology, Ericsson, Fujitsu Limited, Indeed, Infosys, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Camuda, Capital One, CloudBees, Colt, Comcast, Ellucian, EPAM Systems, and Volvo Car Corporation. Among the companies that signed the agreement in previous years are: Red Hat, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, HPE, SAP, SUSE, Amazon, Arm, Canonical, GitLab, Intel, NEC, Philips, Toyota, Adobe, Alibaba, Amadeus, Ant Financial, Atlassian, Atos, AT&T, Bandwidth, Etsy, GitHub, Hitachi, NVIDIA, Oath, Renesas, Tencent, and Twitter. The signed terms apply to code under licenses GPLv2, LGPLv2, and LGPLv2.1 and fully comply with the terms adopted by the Linux kernel developers.

The GPLv2 license defines the possibility of immediate revocation of the license from the violator and termination of all rights granted to the licensee, which allows for the interpretation of non-compliance with GPLv2 as a breach of contract, for which the court can seek financial penalties. This feature creates additional risks for companies using GPLv2 in their products and makes legal support for derivative solutions unpredictable, as even unintentional errors or oversights create conditions for compensation through litigation.

The accepted agreement transfers to GPLv2 the termination conditions applied in the GPLv3 license, which differ by explicitly defining the timelines and procedures for remedying violations. According to the rules established in GPLv3, if violations are identified for the first time and rectified within 30 days of notification, licensing rights are restored, and the license is not fully revoked (the contract remains intact). Rights are also immediately restored if violations are remedied without the rights holder notifying of the violation within 60 days. Otherwise, the restoration of rights must be negotiated separately with each rights holder. Under the new conditions, financial compensation may be claimed in court not immediately upon detection of a violation, but only after a period of 30 days allocated for resolving licensing issues.

Source: opennet.ru