BEIJING, March 29 (Xinhuanet) -- A third draft of the GNU General Public License Version 3, which addresses last year's controversial Microsoft-Novell patent deal, as well as digital rights management and licensing issues, was released Wednesday by the Free Software Foundation.

    GPLv3 is the first upgrade of the original document in 16 years. It is a direct response to several industry developments, including a controversial 2006 distribution pact between Microsoft and Novell that highlighted interoperability and a smooth coexistence of Windows and Suse Linux.

    The new draft comes eight months after the second version was released. The FSF said the license under which Linux software is distributed is intended to "negate part of the harm of the Microsoft-Novell deal" to ensure similar deals don't cut into the open source market.

    "It remains to be seen how this process plays out," Gordon Haff, principal IT adviser at Illuminata, told LinuxInsider. He noted several sticking points that need to be released before a final version is complete.

    "It is still a work in progress," said Haff.

    The Microsoft-Novell deal was one of the major factors driving the revision, said Haff, who also cited digital rights management, patents and mixing of license issues.

    "Nothing in this new draft of GPL3 inhibits Novell's ability to include GPL3 technologies in Suse Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, and other Novell open source offerings, now and in the future," Bruce Lowry, a spokesperson for Novell, wrote in his corporate blog. "This is good news for our customers."

    The document, created by Richard Stallman in 1989 for the GNU free operating system project, was last fully revised in 1991 and provides users the right to openly and freely "study, copy, modify, reuse, share and redistribute software."

    "Other changes are being made in response to community comments, but it (GPLv3) is clearly much more detailed and legalistic," Haff said.

    The draft will be open for public comment for 30 days. The final license will be published shortly afterwards, according to the FSF.

    (Agencies)