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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.
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.
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
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.
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?
"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.
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.'
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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