Linus on DRM

Linus Torvalds weighed in on the DRM debate on the linux-kernel mailing list last night. No, don't click through, his email is reproduced below. Worth reading and thinking about.

Thread on LKML:

Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 20:59:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linus Torvalds
To: Kernel Mailing List
Subject: Flame Linus to a crisp!

Ok,
there's no way to do this gracefully, so I won't even try. I'm going to
just hunker down for some really impressive extended flaming, and my
asbestos underwear is firmly in place, and extremely uncomfortable.

I want to make it clear that DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!

There, I've said it. I'm out of the closet. So bring it on...

I've had some private discussions with various people about this already,
and I do realize that a lot of people want to use the kernel in some way
to just make DRM go away, at least as far as Linux is concerned. Either by
some policy decision or by extending the GPL to just not allow it.

In some ways the discussion was very similar to some of the software
patent related GPL-NG discussions from a year or so ago: "we don't like
it, and we should change the license to make it not work somehow".

And like the software patent issue, I also don't necessarily like DRM
myself, but I still ended up feeling the same: I'm an "Oppenheimer", and I
refuse to play politics with Linux, and I think you can use Linux for
whatever you want to - which very much includes things I don't necessarily
personally approve of.

The GPL requires you to give out sources to the kernel, but it doesn't
limit what you can _do_ with the kernel. On the whole, this is just
another example of why rms calls me "just an engineer" and thinks I have
no ideals.

[ Personally, I see it as a virtue - trying to make the world a slightly
better place _without_ trying to impose your moral values on other
people. You do whatever the h*ll rings your bell, I'm just an engineer
who wants to make the best OS possible. ]

In short, it's perfectly ok to sign a kernel image - I do it myself
indirectly every day through the kernel.org, as kernel.org will sign the
tar-balls I upload to make sure people can at least verify that they came
that way. Doing the same thing on the binary is no different: signing a
binary is a perfectly fine way to show the world that you're the one
behind it, and that _you_ trust it.

And since I can imaging signing binaries myself, I don't feel that I can
disallow anybody else doing so.

Another part of the DRM discussion is the fact that signing is only the
first step: _acting_ on the fact whether a binary is signed or not (by
refusing to load it, for example, or by refusing to give it a secret key)
is required too.

But since the signature is pointless unless you _use_ it for something,
and since the decision how to use the signature is clearly outside of the
scope of the kernel itself (and thus not a "derived work" or anything like
that), I have to convince myself that not only is it clearly ok to act on
the knowledge of whather the kernel is signed or not, it's also outside of
the scope of what the GPL talks about, and thus irrelevant to the license.

That's the short and sweet of it. I wanted to bring this out in the open,
because I know there are people who think that signed binaries are an act
of "subversion" (or "perversion") of the GPL, and I wanted to make sure
that people don't live under mis-apprehension that it can't be done.

I think there are many quite valid reasons to sign (and verify) your
kernel images, and while some of the uses of signing are odious, I don't
see any sane way to distinguish between "good" signers and "bad" signers.

Comments? I'd love to get some real discussion about this, but in the end
I'm personally convinced that we have to allow it.

Btw, one thing that is clearly _not_ allowed by the GPL is hiding private
keys in the binary. You can sign the binary that is a result of the build
process, but you can _not_ make a binary that is aware of certain keys
without making those keys public - because those keys will obviously have
been part of the kernel build itself.

So don't get these two things confused - one is an external key that is
applied _to_ the kernel (ok, and outside the license), and the other one
is embedding a key _into_ the kernel (still ok, but the GPL requires that
such a key has to be made available as "source" to the kernel).

Linus

Comments

Props to Linus

[dtolton]

What Linus is saying makes complete sense to me. I think the
Kernel level of Linux is the wrong place to make a political
stand like that. What has made Linux successful, and what will
make it ultimately *the* OS is it's an
Evolvable System

The fact that people can use Linux for whatever they need to is
what makes it such a compelling system. The fact that you can
tinker with it, change the source, in short make it work for you
is what makes Linux successful.

He also makes a good point, there is a difference between
allowing DRM and forcing everyone that uses the OS to use DRM
(as M$ want). There are some times when DRM is very legitimate
(Goverment Top Secret Docs, Litigation Confidential information
etc), and there are the times when I consider it to be
un-ethical (most other situations I can think of).

I have to say way to go Linus. Keep the system evolvable.
Ultimately isn't it a catch 22 anyway? If he prohibits DRM,
isn't that sort of like saying "this is my software and you
can't do XX with it".

Re:Props to Linus

[FortKnox]

Linus is great in these situations. He takes rabid open source zealots and brings them back to reality before they go too far off.

He simply shows that you don't have to be political (mp3 sharer, privacy guru, etc...) to enjoy Linux. And offshoots will always be there for you rabid-types.

Who's loss? None.

Re:Props to Linus

[RLiegh]

Political??

The only political class most MP3 sharers belong to is the lumpen-proletariat. There are very few exceptions.

[flame][sarcasm]...and the less of those scummy poor people we have, the better!!![/sarcasm]

Zappa's "we're only in it for the money" is written about and from the POV of the lumpen proletariat (who happened to be the members of the creative and political 'freak' movement--which the media later morphed into 'hippies'); Old punk (dead kennedys, mc5) were lumpen proletariat...and highly political as well.

The reason that liberalism lost it's relevency [sp?] is because the liberals became too academic and pendantic...allowing the christian right to come in and take over as the voice of the 'lumpen proletariat'.

So now, we have DRM, the DMCA and John Ashcroft using the constitution as his own personal toilet paper...yay yay yay![/flame]

Re:Props to Linus

[renehollan]

He simply shows that you don't have to be political (mp3 sharer, privacy guru, etc...) to enjoy Linux

You don't have to be political to enjoy a nice pair of new running shoes (made, possibly, with child labour), medical advances (made possible to some degree due to research done via unanesthesized vivisection of Jews by Nazis during WWII), or "free" health care (paid by tax dollars taken from those who now can't pay for their medical needs not covered by the "free" program).

You don't have to, certainly, but you should.

Politics, at its core, is the study of the philosophy of ethics. Ideally, the concern should be arriving at a means to determine whether actions are "right" or "wrong" without personal or group bias. Of course, "politics", as practiced, has nothing to do with ethics, and everything to do with special interests. And, no doubt, different people have different views of "right" and "wrong". It behooves them, to take part in the ethical debate.

With regard to Linux, particularly these days, that debate extends to whether it should be "permitted" to exist at all, supposedly being a "hackers'" and "terrorists'" tool. Surely, anyone who enjoys Linux should have an interest in the ethics surrounding it.

Now, should is not must, and people are free to live their lives in apolitical oblivion. However, the old mantra "evil prevails when good people do nothing", does nag at one's conscience, and such apathy in an individual is not a characteristic I particularly like to see.

In this regard, RMS is right to deride Linus Torvalds as merely an "engineer". Linus' pet operating system would not even exist, and have a strong ethical footing supporting the "goodness" of that existance, were it not for RMS' philosophical views. While this does not represent a "debt", per se., decent people generally respond to kindness (yes, the GPL is an act of kindness), by reciprocating.

In summary...

[sporty]

Technology, encryption, reverse engineering, mp3's, drm, sniffers.. they arne't inherently evil. It's the usage and if they go against your morals, ethics and general desires, if they are good or not.

Laws which put their use at all, as forbidden or not, is what should not be put into law. It's how they are used.

Context

[Xenex]

"There, I've said it. I'm out of the closet. So bring it on... " -- Linus Torvalds

Things are so much more interesting out of context...

Linus Not God, Says God

[ih8apple]

Linus Not God, Says God

In a shocking announcement cast down from the Heavens today, it was announced that Linus Torvalds was not, in fact, God.

Anthony Macewell was chosen to receive this information, as he worked on his PC:

"It was kinda freaky", Anthony said, "Linux booted, and just when I was expecting it to fsck everything, my computer burst into flames and I was surrounded by a host of angels. I don't remember that ever being a feature of Red Hat."

The angels, their appearance accompanied by a flawless four-part harmony, left Anthony a delicate manuscript, explaining that he should make sure that it was delivered to the Linux community.

The manuscript reads:

"For the attention of the Linux Community: Linus Torvalds is not God. God is currently very busy in creating various new planets and overseeing the forthcoming apocalypse on Earth. He has not had the time to develop any mortal Operating Systems, and is not likely to do so in the near future. He will continue only to endorse white robes and comfortable sandals."

The reaction from the Linux community has been varied. The slashdot.org community has reacted by having a circular discussion, with any idea other than "Linus is God, and Linux is the best thing ever for anything", being slammed down by angry, frothing, Linux advocates. A crusade to burn all the non-Linus believing heretics has been launched, in the form of a new website with a flashy domain name, which will predictably close within two weeks due to a lack of interest.

A spokesperson for Microsoft commented, "Well, we never believed that Linus existed anyway. It takes more than a couple of sightings near burning bushes to convince us, you know. We'll continue to worship Windows as we always have done. Lots of people have faith in Windows, no matter how much it lets them down, so it must be right."

This is what has made Linux successful,

[Viperion]

It's Linus' optimism. See, RMS insists that if you don't tell people what they can't do with software, that they'll do the worst. Linus assumes that people will do whatever they feel like, and the more they can do, the better, because you can't easily stop a movement. You can stop a man.

Go Linus. I'm not a DRM fan, but I am a fan of you ideology.

I looked behind the magic curtain...

[Dutchmaan]

This was all a practical joke..!!

It was Bill Gates snickering with a Linus puppet on his hand!

I said "Hey Bill! Whatchya doin'?" ..and he said... "Watch them all support DRM now!..and he snickered again.."

Right tool for the job

[October_30th]

On the whole, this is just another example of why rms calls me "just an engineer" and thinks I have no ideals.

This is exactly why I like Linus. Unlike certain nutjobs, he's rational enought to know that one should always use the right tool for the job.

When ideals get in the way of actually achieving your goals they are doing more harm than good for the cause.

That comment made me wonder if RMS actually holds a grudge against Linus for not conforming to his standards of "purity".

Re:Right tool for the job

[IamTheRealMike]

Slow down there.

RMS thinks in a different way to most of us. When he chooses a tool, he wants one that conforms to his ideals because he isn't just thinking about the next 5 minutes, he isn't interested in just solving this problem and moving on. He thinks a long way ahead.

So when you offer him a proprietary piece of software, he won't use it, even if it's more convenient than what he already has. He believes that in the long term, it's the wrong tool for the job, because he takes into account things that to most people are entirely ethereal - things like what kind of society he wants to live in, the long term maintainability of the software, lack of vendor lock in and so on.

I see way too many people slamming RMS for not being pragmatic enough. I think in reality he is very pragmatic, but with a different timeframe for his concerns to most people, leading them to view him as a "nutjob" or having "alien" thinking.

I'm going to have to agree with him on this one

[Hunts]

There is nothing horrible about the idea of DRM, its mearly what people are going to do with it. And before any blows my head, just remeber this is that same argument put forth to defend openbsd only yesterday( was it yesterday, I'm loosing track of time at the moment.)

I like that I can trust software to be what it says it is, I think its a step in the right direction to protecting againt trojans etc..

I dont want to be forced to do it though for every little thing that somebody thinks I need permission to run. If certain DRM can be applied to the linux kernal that make computing safer (and by that I mean actually safer, not MS safer or somebody else thinking their making me safer by imposing rules on me), then go right ahead.

Just make sure I can remove it should I wish.

DRM will be *needed* by linux

[James McP]

Maybe not now, but later.

Look, you put out a set-top media box running embedded Linux. Assuming it is the multimedia grail (online video/audio playback & capture) it will do more than GPL/opensource codecs. It will NEED to handle WMAs and other proprietary formats that may include a time-locked DRM.

Do I like blanket DRM? No, I want to be able to make backups of my DVDs, CDs, and other purchased materials.

What I don't have a problem with is a box that will D/L the movie I want to watch and store it for a max of 48 hours in a "digital Blockbuster" scenario. And that will eventually happen as digital cable set-top boxes will include hard drives for local caching and they will require DRM on that hardware.

Same thing goes for more and more Point of Sale stations. Signed binary data will be more and more necessary. I'm waiting for the day software compares my signature with the one stored on the credit card's chip. And I'm all for it.

I'll be honest; I want them to be able to choose linux. The other option is that everything becomes Windows. Do you really want every credit card terminal, ATM and terminal to be Windows because it is the only thing that supports DRM?

What this is about

[amcguinn]

No-one commenting so far seems to have a clue what this is all about, so here goes.

Imagine someone builds hardware that will only run binaries signed by the manufacturer (current example: X-box, future examples: who knows)

Now imagine someone makes a version of Linux with functionality limited in some way -- think DRM, and gets that version signed by the hardware manufacturer so that it will run on the controlled hardware.

Now, as a user of that version of Linux, you have all your GPL rights to obtain, modify, and redistribute the source. But, since only the exact original signed binary will actually run on the hardware, those rights are (arguably) worthless.

Linus is saying that this is permissible, or at least that it is not his job to try to prevent it.

Now at least the flames can be on-topic...

IT'S THE LAW, STUPID

[MS_leases_my_soul]

OK, I agree with what Linus is saying here - he is just a codehead and is not going to tell you what you can or can not put in your build. Cool, but we are still just talking about the technology.

The problem today is not the technology -- "IT IS THE LAW, STUPID!"

If Microsoft puts some crazy stupid DRM in the next version of Windows, it might be the final straw to get something else to the desktop (be it Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Linux, or something else). As long as people have the freedom of choice, M$ can only go so far before they loose the customer base.

The problem is the DCMA and the baby-DCMAs popping up at the state level. If the government makes DRM *MANDATORY*, you loose your choice. I can very easily see the RIAA and MPAA requiring that all OS's require DRM in the very near future. Think about it.

Re:h*ll

[$rtbl_this]

Personally I think that it's recognition of the fact that eternal torment can take place in either Hell or Hull. The only problem I can see is that the scope hasn't been extended to include Dundee.

I would LOVE signed kernel support in bios!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole "debate" is like saying you can't sell hammers because we think someone will use them as a deadly weapon. BIOS support for signed boot images would be a good, useful thing - don't confuse this "hammer" with the malicious intent with which it may be used.

Imagine being able to tell your bios not to load a kernel (actually, boot loader is probably more accurate), unless it was signed by you. Then you've just guaranteed that even after a system break-in, you can at least start from a known clean kernel.

Doing this in hardware, designed so that there is no way for the running OS to overwrite the BIOS' copy of the key, is the only way to make it safe.

And, yes, I would personally USE it. I would LOVE to be able to tell the bios not to load a version of grub I didn't install, and I'd love to then also be able to tell grub not to load a kernel that was modified without my knowledge. While we're at it, I'd like to be able to extend that to all of my kernel modules, and from there even to certain key system binaries used during run-time.

In other words, allowing the bios to offer security checking really DOES allow for the possibility of ENDING the requirement that you wipe and re-install an OS (or even an application) after a successful break-in. It provides a very much needed "guaranteed safe starting point" for building additional security.

Should bios makers embed a microsoft key in every bios - absolutely not. Should bios makers provide a straight-forward way of letting system owners install their own keys? YES, PLEASE, YES!!!

So what APIs should the bios offer to the OS? Certainly nothing that allows the key to be read or overwritten, but it would be nice if it would provide a "check and approve or reject" API so running applications could determine whether other files are clean before loading them. As long as this all starts from a single trusted source (system reboot checks boot loader, which checks everything it loads (including the files used to make future checks)), this is THE CURE for lots of current security problems.

Re:terrorist

[ReelOddeeo]

Can you name one person who is actually on record arguing that open source software should not be permitted to exist?

They are not on record. And I won't actually name one of my co-workers. But Yes.

There are others who have been far more public however. There was one Jim Allchin a couple years ago. He didn't come right out and say it, but he dances around it and implies it quite well.

From a cnet article here.

Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating-system chief, Jim Allchin, says that freely distributed software code such as rival Linux could stifle innovation and that legislators need to understand the threat.

....

That, as well as programs such as music-sharing software from Napster Inc., means the world's largest software maker has to do a better job of talking to policymakers, he said.

....

''Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer,'' Allchin said. ''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.''

....

''I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,'' he said. ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.''