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Linus Speaks Out On GPLv3
Slagged writes to mention the word that Linus Torvalds isn't a fan of the new GPL draft. News.com has the story, and someone purporting to be Linus is causing a ruckus in the Groklaw thread on the subject. From the News.com article: "Say I'm a hardware manufacturer. I decide I love some particular piece of open-source software, but when I sell my hardware, I want to make sure it runs only one particular version of that software, because that's what I've validated. So I make my hardware check the cryptographic signature of the binary before I run it ... The GPLv3 doesn't seem to allow that, and in fact, most of the GPLv3 changes seem to be explicitly designed exactly to not allow the above kind of use, which I don't think it has any business doing."
I don't think manufacturers have any business preventing me from running my own code on hardware I purchased, at that stage I may as well be using MS Windows.
It's fine to have the hardware validate the software, I don't think anyone can rationally argue against that. What's not fine is to have the hardware refuse to run the software at all. If the user is conscious that the software is modified and therefor unsupported, then the user should have the ability to run any software he chooses.
So, have a cryptographic check alongside a message or error light or something about running in unsupported mode, but don't completely cripple the hardware just because you want to avoid support headaches.
Part of the point of OSS is that anything that you can modify should be modifyable. From the FSF's perspective, a hardware vendor shouldn't be allowed to lock you into using their approved software. You should be able to run whatever software you'd like on the hardware that you paid for. I'm not from the heart of OSS evangalism, but by allowing a hardware vendor to lock you into a certain version of an OSS application, you've closed the source of that app. It can be modified, but not run - and, to me at least, running is the ultimate point of software.
Say I'm a hardware consumer. I decide I love some particular piece of hardware and buy it with my hard earned money. But when I try to run one particular version of open source software customized for me, it doesnt run because the hardware complains it is not validated.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that anyone who reads what Linus posts to linux-kernel will agree that the style of writing and thought in these Groklaw posts is his. So either it is indeed Linus or a very good replica.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
What if the only binaries whose cryptographic signature matches happen to be binaries that come out of Redmond?
Or, even more likely- that the only machines that are permitted to license Redmond binaries are required to enforce that only
Redmond binaries will run.
In that case, goodbye Linux. Goodbye BSD. Goodbye everything except a world of unending data held hostage.
This needs to be stopped. Now.
http://hotwired.goo.ne.jp/matrix/9709/5_linus.htm
In other words, Linus likes the GPL for the actual reasons that it is a good license, not out of any kind of narrow-minded 'software ideology'.
It will get issued but it won't get widely adopted. RMS has become impatient in this quest for social revolution and now he's decided to wield a bigger club. I don't think many others, who write and widely distribute highly useful software, will pick it up and join him.
Similarly, no hardware vendors are forced to use GPLv3 software. If they don't like it, they can find software with a different license, possibly GPLv2. The key thing is that the hardware vendors are not allowed to violate the license terms chosen by the software author.
For Linux it is completely irrelevant. Despite any opinions Linus might have on the matter, it is effectively impossible to get all of the owners of the copyright of any non-trivial amount of the Linux code to agree to a license change, so Linux will use GPLv2 for most of its code for the forseeable future.
imagine a world where there's an open source electronic voting software package that everybody used... wouldn't you want the voting machine to be able to reject software that wasn't say verified by a voting auditing board and signed?
the same thing could be true of open source ATM software. would you want your ATM to whine like HAL having his memory yanked when malware was loaded onto it, or would you want it to refuse to run?
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Has anyone tried emailing Linus and asking if the groklaw commenter is him?
When you get past the misinformation, errors and outright lies, trusted computing is not as bad as people think it is.
I don't think you realize that "trusted computing" generally means "distrust the USER/OWNER of the computer". I think what everyone is afraid of is losing control of THEIR computer to some government/corporate organization.
And yes, you have a point, it's not as bad as it may appear... if you're the one in control of what trust. Unfortunately, from the talk that's going around, it's likely users won't be in control (ie: hardware vendor ensures that any OS that runs on the box must be signed by some authority, etc.)---I franky cannot see how that benefits anyone but some corporation.
And slowly but surely this technology is getting here. Music players, etc., many of them already restrict their owners. In a few years, it's not unlikely this will happen to PCs.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
There is one fundamental flaw in your argument. Your OSS project (no matter how much you want to think it is) was not as marketable as something like say Mozilla Firefox. How many people are going to play "dragonrealms" much less code for it? Now think of what people do from day to day on the computer. For the average Joe User, the computer is meant for e-mail checking, light browsing of the internet, etc. Both of those activities require some way of gathering information from webservers. Most modern web browsers like Mozilla Firefox offer Joe User an easy way of getting just that.
As for the public not adding anything to the project, that may be true, but without at least a minority of the public adding value to projects such as mplayer, KDE, GNOME, etc., these projects would not be still alive.
If nothing else, the simple thank yous of the general public are enough to make this open source coder's day.
Linus is becoming less and less relevant as time goes by.
What utter bullshit. I disagree with him, but that doesn't make him any less relevant. If everytime RMS said something I disagreed with, and I called him "irrelevant" that would be stupid along the same lines.
It's akin to saying Jefferson isn't relevant anymore, because he's dead. So obviously we should ignore his views on the constitution.
Now there are companies involved, all of a sudden the original volunteers that built the community from the ground up "aren't relevant". Disagree if you will (I do) but quit mouthing shit. Thankyou.
What is happening, is that I'm saying that if you want to use *my* software on a DRM platform, *then* you have to hand out the keys or whatever else is needed. Which, for software I write, is exactly what I want. (Of course, I have trouble imagining how it would be relevant for things I write, but that's a different matter -- I don't write media players or kernels or other obvious targets).
As a software *author*, I lose nothing. As a user of other people's software, I lose out only if I'm trying to redistribute their copyrighted work in ways they don't want. And, in that case, too bad for me -- just like it's always been.
This license is about giving authors more choices, not less. And personally, this is an option I like.
I don't think the FSF is overreaching at all. They are simply providing developers that which is required for the fruits of their labor to survive in a potentially hostle environment of selfish interest and greed.
Their goal is the preservation of software freedom against a potential onslaught of patent and digital "rights" management technology. Technology which will no doubt enable business that want to the ability to userp the work others have done, make tons of money and offer nothing back except lock-in.
Remember, it was a proprietary printer driver (software) that started the whole free software movement. Having open source printer drivers and drm protected proprietary hardware that requires a certain "signed" binary would not be any better. If we allow this to happen it will be as if we've learned nothing from the past.
MFG: "The system supports both the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and WIMP (Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) platforms."
Amazing commentary and I have to say I agree with him whole heartedly. The Freedom crowd is so full of hate and unrighteous indignity that talking to them is counter productive. It never occurs to the Freedom crowd that the reason Microsoft was so successful in the first place was that their OS and software gave their customers the freedom to assemble and use their own hardware. More than anything, this is the reason MS became a monopoly. Back when I bought my first computer, Apple was the evil, proprietary, expensive, black and white alternative to the freedom loving, open, affordable, colorful DOS box. Even then, I didn't spend my days hating Apple, I just didn't buy their cr@p. I was too busy playing Starflight and XOR football.
You know, the one that is actually free instead of just claiming to be free?
I think Linus has it basically right here, except in saying that the FSF/GPLv3 has "no business" excluding that kind of use ("abuse" is more like it). The FSF *is* in the business of protecting user freedoms, and this is one of those things one must do to prevent just such an abuse. If developers don't want their work abused by hardware vendors that want to end-run a user's freedom in this way, they can choose GPLv3, and said vendor can find some other app to do that with (or write their own). Those developers who don't care for that kind of protection still have GPLv2. Choice is good.
//that you own//.
//users//, not of "owners". The concept of device ownership doesn't appear in their mission statement, while users do. Perhaps it shouldn't!
Hardware restrictions like that impact software freedom, and that *is* the Free Software Foundation's "business".
I want to agree, however, that the kernel is not a good candidate for this new provision. I'd point out that the ability to lock out the running of software on your own property - say, when you rent or loan it out - is almost as important as having the right run your own software on your own property. The real vicious part of DRM is when vendors sell devices outright, but withold certain property rights we otherwise take for granted. Did you know that "owner" and "taking ownership" are technical terms described in the TCG/TCPA Trusted Computing Specifications? The problem is when "ownership" is "taken" by a vendor at the factory, before they transfer the legal, commercial "ownership" of a device to a consuemr who buys it outright. Although you have all the legal rights of ownership, the vendor is actually the "owner" of the device, from the perspective of the TCG/TCPA specs. The device has been "pre-0wnzored", if you will.
The DRM clause in the GPLv3 is a direct prohibition on this kind of shenanigan.
That said, the ability to lock out the running of software on property you really do own - both legally AND technically - is an important one. If the above-mentioned vendor were actually renting or loaning you their property (which isn't a bad idea, in light of some environmentally-geared legislation requiring vendors to take back and recycle their products), they'd have every right to lock out modified software, whether they implemented the TCG/TCPA specs or not.
The problem is that the license doesn't discriminate between these two cases. Perhaps it should. Users should have the freedom to run - or not to run - any software you choose on any hardware
Then again, the FSF is specifically geared toward protecting the freedoms of
Not an easy issue.
My feeling is, any license that prevents people from doing what they want, no matter what it is, is in fact un-free.
GPLv3 does not circumvent DRM, it creates an environment hostile to DRM.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
The fact is that the GPL protects the "freedoms" of users by actually emancipating the software itself - through the user! A close analogy is the emancipation of slaves: former slave owners lose freedoms they once enjoyed (owning slaves). Arguably, one could view this is a situation where *some* are now less free (because they cannot own slaves anymore).
The same is true with GPLed software: no, you are not as free as someone using MIT or BSD licensed software because you cannot go subterranean with the source code and your changes.
For those poor hardware manufacturers who are lusting after some GPL protected software I can see several options:
1. Forgo the GPLed software and get a closed-source alternative.
2. Contact the owners of the software and see if you can get the software under a more "friendly" license. For the Linux kernel that would be difficult if not impossible.
3. Embrace the GPL and move forward into a net freer world despite, like slave owners, you cannot use GPLed software in a closed system.
Now, arguably, somebody is going to point out that by taking the stance I've just outlined then I'm contributing to pressures to move *some* manufacturers away from using FL/OSS (e.g. GPLed) software. That may be true. But I'll take some loss of gadgets and gizmos, perhaps even large systems, to maintain the freedoms that the GPL and similar licenses try to ensure.
In the end I believe that the pressures to "go free" and to "let tinker" will eventually win out for all, including the manufacturer. Consider Id: do they get calls about user mods based on their game engines? Maybe a few, but the overwhelming positive results of user mods makes it a no-brainer: enable the mods.
As far as entertaining the example from the original post. I wouldn't waste too much mental energy on it. And if the blurb really came from Linus, then here's a message to Linus: get over it, the example you created may be short-term significant, but, if free software eventually is successful, long-term irrelevant.
Whoa, I think you missed the whole point of freedom :-)
If they apply drm to anything I write, then *that* particular binary isn't modifiable, but so what? They still have to provide the source on demand to anyone they give the binary to. That, after modification, the source can't be compiled to run on that particular hardware isn't an issue. Why? Because when it happens enough times, people will say f*ck this and buy hardware w/o the lock-in. Nothing worse than a horde of pissed-off customers.
The original source can still be modded and run fine on non-locked-out platforms.
Now I understand your point - that if they had to develop their own software, this would cost them extra. But any software that they developed themselves would be totally locked up, and there would be absolutely no leverage to ever convince them to go non-drm, or even a sort of "open drm", where the content might be locked, but not the app.
GPLv2 deals fine with these issues, by putting everything where it belongs - the push and shove of the marketplace. GPLv3, on the other hand, is both premature and heavy-handed. I'm sticking with v2, not just out of "political" reasons, but because I believe the marketplace works.
Take a look at what's happening. Microsoft, with all its monopoly power, is scared of linux, firefox, etc. The marketplace IS speaking out. Now, if someone insists on running Windows, this hasn't diminished me in any way - I haven't lost anything. If they want to run my code on a winbox instead of a linbox, how have I, or anyone else, lost out?
Same thing if they wanted to run it on a box that only allowed signed drm binaries. The only loser is the person who actually does this, then can't take advantage of any updates I do. Their loss, not mine. And its up to them to bear the cost of dumping their locked-in solution and switch.
The first freedom of free software is to run it on anything you want. That includes proprietary and/or closed systems. Now, personally, I think that's a dumb thing to do in most cases, since open systems have consistently better performance and higher-quality code, but that's my choice - my freedom.
What are people complaining about? Stuff like Tivo. Really, now - they're complaining about goddamn TV shows! Come on, there are more important things than that ... and if you don't like it, you can always make your own Freevio,or pay someone else to slap one toghether for you. Tivo didn't suddenly make Freevio impossible. What it DID do was give a target to shoot for.
Lets take a real-life example. I've got some code for an integrated back-end/front-end inventory and web site. If/when I get around to cleaning it up and gpl'ing it, if someone else takes it and mods it so that it runs on a particular piece of hardware, but that only mods "signed" by them will run on that hardware, all they've really done is limited their market to people stupid enough to buy closed hardware. Everyone else is enjoying the benefits of open code on open hardware for less. What's the problem? Its just like a lottery, a tax on stupidity, right :-)
Just this last week had a demonstration that eventually the market rights itself no matter what, when Microsoft's profits were down by a quarter, with the long-term outlook being more of the same. Closed systems just can't compete over the long term.
Another example. I wrote the beginning of a c2java converter, because java lacks a lot of the constructs I like. One of these days I'll finish it and put it out there for people to play with. What would be the incentive for someone to pay for a drm'd version, wehn they can have the original one, with source that they can modify and run, for free? There is none. Anyone trying to market such a setup would be doing the "web 0.0" dot-bomb thing.
Anyway, that's my take on it at this point. Let the free market handle it. There are too many of "us", and too few of "them", for us to fail unless we just stand there bent over with our hands around our ankles and buy any and all locked-in products. And if we do that, then we really do deserve the shafting we get.
The FSF's stance is controversial (as exemplified by the GPL 3) because it's about freedom, which for all of human history has been hardly understood.
...while the FSF would probably characterize false freedom as this:
Licenses like BSD/MIT have a view of freedom that is more like anarchy: the "do anything you want" style of so-called freedom (but at least give credit to who wrote the code). This stance doesn't actually create freedom because "anything you want to do" can also include taking freedom away from others. BSD people used to argue that you would still have freedom, only it's with the old code before the proprietary fork, etc. But DRM and other methods of preventing you from modifying and running software is not protected by BSD licensing. So, it is even more true today that BSD-like licensing in actuality has little to do with freedom and more to do with technological research without regard to the sustained openness that made studying that code possible.
Freedom must be preserved and encouraged in order to exist! It is not a spontaneous choice that can be made after neglecting its preservation. Once freedom is gone, once official mechanisms are in place to restrict you, you can't simply make a choice to be free again. When I think of the FSF, I believe they understand freedom as many others have realized throughout history...
"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free." - Clarence Darrow
"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." -Goethe
"Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain." - John F. Kennedy
"After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement." - Norman Thomas
The more we are tempted by money to deprive others of freedom, the less freedom we all have in the end, and the less it's worth living in such a society even if you're rich. Don't worry about people crying about loss of profitability, etc. History has always shown that there will always be clever people that will find some way to make money, whether people are free or in chains.
No, it fixes a very important issue.
You know the story of rms' printer driver: he wanted to be able to modify the printer driver so it would bloody work right or work better. He couldn't do that, so he made GNU.
Now let's say the new rms. smr wants to fix his printer which is running embedded GPL software. Great, he thinks, I have the source code to this, so I can just fix the source and make my printer work/better.
Oops! The printer doesn't allow you to do this. This is an awful loophole that restricts your freedom to modify the program. You can modify it, but you might as well write it on on a piece of paper for all that's worth. What the user needs to be able to do is modify the software and use it to really have that freedom. GPLv3 protects this. Linus is really being a stubborn idiot about this.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
...to preserve a user's freedom to use software how they want and to modify it in any way they want.
Linus seems on this point to think it is acceptable to prevent a user from having the above freedoms merely because a hardware manufacturer (who has made their own modifications to GPL'd software) does not want others to be able to have the same freedoms.
I respect Linus for what he's done and contributed to Free software, but on this point I think he is wrong.
"I think you missed the whole point of freedom"
I think you missed the whole point of whose freedom is protected in the GPL.
"If they apply drm to anything I write"
If they want to apply DRM to anything I write, then they can damn well write the code themselves (or join the anti-IP fight). The GPL aint a free lunch, it's a guarantee of the freedoms for the recipients of the works and derivative works.
The application of DRM further creates a free rider problem where companies releasing under GPL risk finding themselves at a disadvantage versus those who dont; suddenly it's a one-way street.
"this would cost them extra"
Enough extra to make it unprofitable, or to give the open competition an advantage on price, a difference that is only going to grow in the future.
"Let the free market handle it."
Oh, please. The whole IP industry is nothing like a free market. The GPL restores free market competition for a small segment, but the business is full of protectionists trying to find ways to cheat even that.
"Bios chipsets conform to trusted computing and refuse to run non-trusted content. Only windows is signed. Linux can't run. End of story.
No the free market won't work here. There won't be any companies that break the rules,"
Excuse me, my company _will_ break the rules, because we're running Oracle off of Linux and there ain't no way in hell we'll run it off of Windows. Solaris maybe, but that'll mean buying into a new hardware supplier, which is also a big no-no. And I'm sure that my company will not be the only one. If digital signing of binaries comes in fashion (and many have tried already, and failed), then it'll have to be in an open way, much like the way we have CA's on the www these days.
I'm not saying that I'm liking it - I'm just saying there's no need for paranoia.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Linus' problem is that he never really agreed with these ideals. He originally licensed Linux as free for non-commerical use, but then released it under the GPL as a result of pressure from the community. Linus calls himself a pragmatist, which is a polite way of saying socially short-sighted. The FSF are often regarded as extremist idealists, but it is important to realise that they are actually the pragmatic ones. People like RMS created the foundation for purely pragmatic reasons; they had been burned by proprietary software, and they didn't want to be burned again. The easiest way of doing this is to ensure that there is a lot of Free Software about, and to try to create the economic conditions where Free Software is preferable to proprietary software. Linus' view is the equivalent of saying 'Why should we want to outlaw slavery? I'm not a slave.'
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Ah, here's the problem: you're missing the point of the GPL!
With BSD-style licenses, people do use them for the reason you stated: because they want other people to use their code. With the GPL, this is not the case. Instead, people release their software under the GPL because they want to preserve the user's control over his own computer.
Remember, Richard Stallman first created the GPL because his printer wasn't doing what he wanted, and the company refused to give him the source code so that he could fix it. If that happened now, with a printer that used GPL v.2 software but required a company-authorized version to run, the user would be just as screwed as if the code weren't Free Software at all. That's what the GPL is for, and that's why version 3 is needed!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Nope.
You're still free to run the modified software elsewhere, for example, on a competitors' non-drm'd product (which would probably be cheaper to purchase in the first place, since their development and support costs would be lower, and they won't be bleeding $$$ to vendors of DRM libraries/schemes).
Lets take a somewhat different example, looked at from the "other end of the telescope". A month ago I put out some python code under the gpl for doing some MySQL stuff. It only works with MySQL. Nobody has the right to tell me that I'm depriving them of their freedom to run my gpl'd code because it won't work with, say, Access.
Likewise, if someone modifies it to work with Access, I have no right to complain that I can't run the modified version because I don't "do" Windows.
Now lets look at an extreme example. Say WalMart comes out with a linux pc that only runs THEIR version of linux, and it has some really neat new feature (yeah, I know, dream on :-). As long as they make the source available, I'm free to recompile and run it on other machines, provided I remove all the copyrighted artwork, etc.
How have they failed to comply with the GPL? And how have they prevented anyone from selling a better non-drm'd box? They haven't.
Or, you have the freedom to not buy that printer in the first place, buy a different printer, and install the software from someone else's "locked-in" printer.
Lockin of GPL'd software only works for one purchaser - after that, the whole world can use it on any other hardware.
But remember, if you're the one who made the mistake of buying a locked-in device, unless you were misled, you have only yourself to blame. Same as anyone stupid enough to buy Windows or Office and then bitch about "lockin". Your free choice carries consequences.
I don't believe that "let the market sort it out" is a valid response to pretty much anything, but you clearly do, so I'm wondering why you simultaneously believe that the market should sort it out without regard to the fact that the existence of the GPL v3 is the very action of the market sorting it out. The idea that it shouldn't be done because it's not a total solution is clearly a fallacy - the existence of the GPL v3 won't preclude any other solutions to the DRM issue. Rejecting a solution to a specific problem (use of free software in a DRM context that eliminates the end-user advantage of using free software) because it doesn't solve a general issue is just throwing a tantrum.
How often have people on reading Slashdot not had to replace perfectly working hardware just because the vendors rather want to sell a new unit rather than provide bugfixes that makes the stuff they released earlier actually works?
I have saved myself from buying more than one new wireless accesspoint thanks to the bugfixes made available through openwrt.
What about all the old HW that you now cannot use with XP because vendors does not make drivers even though the hardware is perfectly functional not to mention all the old legacy unix boxes out there from Sun, HP, IBM and others that are still usable and powers tens of thousands of internet sites today thanks to *BSD and Linux.
Launch version 2 of product X which do not support old HW releases, send out end of life warning for version 1 and you are guaranteed to see almost everybody upgrade before the next security bug is out.
Vendors will use any chance they have to force customers to upgrade HW whenever they want them to upgrade. There should be absolutely no doubt at all about this and if they can use TPM for this, they will. This is a waste of money for customers, it removes competition and it wastes tons and tons of natural resources on HW upgrades that are not needed.
So, ignore Linus on this one (I cannot really see a single good argument that supports him in this case) and save the planet by optimizing reuse and life length of the things we make.
I do actually support TPM, I find it very usefull but only when I control the thing. I don't see any logical reason that I need a vendor to do this, although I would be happy to see vendor authorised signatures on products and distribution that the TPM module use to help me make sure that I never execute unexpected things. Integrate TPM with functions similar to Microsofts certified drivers for instance.
Should be more then sufficient. Do not need a full lockout.
"You assume that people have a choice in the first place, which however often isn't the case."
People ALWAYS have a choice.
"Where are the gaming consoles that aren't locked down to only run authorized code?"
So don't buy the stupid gaming console. Read a book, go visit people, run the game on a pc, whatever. Nobody is forcing these products on people. You have plenty of choices for entertainment.
"How many printers don't try to force you to only use authorized color cartridges?"
So do like I did, and buy a laser printer. Nobody says you have to print shit up in colour. Also, its still possible to refill the carts. Just don't use their stupid lame-ass driver, or if you have to, keep an image of your hard drive. When the driver insists that your still-half-full cart is no longer any good, roll back your hard drive image. Voila - instant "refill".
"How many current generation graphics card are available with open specs?"
The specs might not be open, but this doesn't mean the card is locked down. There's nothing preventing people from reverse-engineering them.
"How many DVDs are non-encrypted?"
Last I looked, this is a separate issue - DVDs are content. And the "encryption" is broken.
"How many MP3 shops are there that sell non DRMed music?"
Aside from allofmp3.com, Yahoo is testing the idea of selling non-drm'd downloads http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5203146.stm. Plus, ther's nothing preventing you from ripping your CD/Vinyl/Tape collection.
My point was that you always have choices.
I agree — both with this, and (more importantly, perhaps) with the substance of your post that begins with a comment about missing the point of freedom. There's one thing here, though, with which I disagree:
In point of fact, it is broken. It's just not broken in the way the FSF thinks it is, or in any manner that GPLv3 is likely to fix. If anything, v3 makes it worse.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say. We're now seeing the FSF take up tactics similar to those of the RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft (the "Great Satan" itself). In particular, the Free Software Foundation has taken to making legal threats to small Linux distribution projects . I'm not even talking about Windows knock-off source-restricting distributions like Linspire — I'm talking about community-supported and fully open-source distributions. They're being threatened with legal action for violation of the GPL thanks to GPLv2 terms that make it absurdly difficult for a grass-roots project to get started and remain financially sustainable.
Things are likely to only get worse from here. In addition to failing to solve any actual problems with most of the changes (though addressing patents is important, and at least that part of the proposed update wasn't entirely misconceived), v3 introduces stronger language supporting some of its failings and new problems. The entire exercise has become wildly absurd, and we're rapidly approaching a point where "free" software's worst enemy might be the FSF, with the GPL as its primary weapon. Using the GPL, according to clauses related to source code availability support requirement clauses, essentially mandates the expenditure of a fair bit of money by anyone wishing to distribute GPLed software. The amount of money involved (we're talking about three years of source code availability support beyond the last distributed binary) in maintaining source versions and distributing them for every single software binary distributed over the last three years effectively makes a fully grass-roots up to date derivative distro a pipe dream (or a legal nightmare waiting to happen if the money isn't spent).
Much as I love the Free/Libre/Open Source Software development model, I don't much like the GPL and the version of that development model it promises us via its terms. I never have, really — but now, the problems of the GPL have become a matter of practice, and not just theory, thanks to the overzealous "defense" of "free" software by the FSF.
Unfetter your ideas. Copyfree your mind.
"If there are vendors that make drivers under the GPL2 or another another non-GPL3 compatible license, you don't buy from them."
Does this mean you're going to avoid linux, because all the core system drivers are GPLv2, and won't be released under any other license? :-)
Okay, seriously ... The first draft of GPLv3 placed restrictions on all types of DRM, to the point of seeming to require you hand over your private key for signing stuff. The second draft has backed down quite a lot.
However, they still don't fix the problem of hardware that runs only a specific key.
All the manufacturer has to do is hardcode a set of key values into their device, and have any attempt to load a value that's not there turn the device into a brick (this is actually allowed behaviour under GPLv3, since it states that manufacturers are not required to warrant modifications). On boot, the device runs the software through the hash function. Even if you have the key they used to generate their hash function, that doesn't help you attempting to upload your new software, because its no longer looking for a value generated by the hash function - its looking for the specific hash. Think about it with passwords. You're not validating that resultant hash value is a valid hash for a name, but a valid hash for YOUR name.Now extend it further. If they use 4 different hash functions, and get 4 different key values in return, you'll take a lifetime to find out which bits to append to the source to get a binary that gives the same 4 hashes.
The proper way is to not support DRM in any form. Just don't buy it. This is part of what Torvalds was saying, but it got lost in the general uproar.
Think of it. A manufacturer produces a device that only allows their version of GPL'd software to run. We'll call it Tivo, for the sake of argument. They make the source available, and you can modify it, but your mods don't run on the original hardware.
What is there to keep anyone else from building the same hardware, and running their mods on that? Nothing. They can even sell it. The only difference is that they'll probably be more expensive initially, since they won't have the economies of scale.
That its not practical is a marketplace education problem, and not something the GPLv3 will cure.
You don't want DRM'd products. Fine, neither do I. But the ONLY way to combat them is to stop buying them. Modifications to kicenses will always have loopholes. Besides, once someone releases equivalent code under a BSD-like license, the leverage of the GPL is gone, because you can DRM the shit out of BSD code. The license allows it. So license changes will only force those who want to incorporate DRM into their products to invest in BSD-style development. However, if there were no market for DRM'd products, this wouldnt happen.
Now for some Rant Time ...
There are legitimate concerns about DRM. I think it sucks. It implies the customer is a crook. It penalizes the honest, while not harming pirates. Its dumb. It will always be possible to work around it if there's enough incentive (eg: money).
But to look at what people are complaining about, it looks more and more like a bunch of children who don't have the self-respect to be able to say no to anything, and want others to help protect them from their own inability to do so.