The third draft of General Public License version 3 includes provisions to toughen the license's stance on patent deals between software providers.
The Free Software Foundation posted draft 3 of GPL 3 on its Web site, as expected, Wednesday.
Modifications were made since the second draft, which came out in July 2006, to address a patent deal between Microsoft and Linux seller Novell, under which Microsoft agreed not to sue Suse Linux customers for patent infringement.
"The recent patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell aims to undermine (software users') freedoms. In (the third) draft, we have worked hard to prevent such deals from making a mockery of free software," Richard Stallman, president of the FSF and principal author of the GPL, said in a statement Wednesday.
Also new in the third draft are simplified terms to make GPL 3 more compatible with GPL 2, which is used for thousands of open-source software products, including the Linux kernel, Java and MySQL.
Previous drafts of GPL 3 have drawn mixed reviews, including major reservations from Linux founder Linus Torvalds and a majority of the Linux kernel developers.
Last year, Torvalds panned GPL 3, saying the new version seeks to promote the Free Software Foundation's philosophy rather than produce a pragmatic legal foundation.
"The GPL was designed to ensure that all users of a program receive the four essential freedoms which define free software," Stallman said of the philosophy behind the open-source license. "These freedoms allow you to run the program as you see fit, study and adapt it for your own purposes, redistribute copies to help your neighbor and release your improvements to the public."
Version 3 has been more than a year in the making, with its first public presentation in January 2006.
The next step to completing GPL 3 is a 60-day comment period, followed by a "last call" draft. The final GPL 3 will arrive 30 days after that, according to the FSF.
The timing pushes back by about three months the original deadline of March for a new version of the license.
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