I've been trying to make sense out of the new Version 3 of the General Public License and I've got to tell you, I can't yet. All I can see is that (1) in the short term, the GPLv3 has turned Microsoft's deal with Novell into a hairball Redmond is trying to cough up; (2) further out, unless the two ayatollahs of open source, Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, kiss and make up, either Linux or the GPLv3 (or both) is dead, and (3) in the long run IBM's move to create a lawsuit-free zone with license terms for its patents just might provide an alternative.