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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.
Here at slashdot, we've had our own share of faux celebrities drop by...
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.
It's not surprising that Linus isn't crazy about GPLv3, because he's not crazy about the GPL in general, in the way that RMS and the Free Software folks are. He's into Linux for the engineering, not to Free the software world.
I am curious about why he chose the GPL and not something BSD-ish for Linux.
That said, I'll wait for some hint on lkml that any of this actually is Linus before I attribute it to him.
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.
Linus is becoming less and less relevant as time goes by. He probably thinks that the entire community is contributing to GNU/Linux because they like him personally. What good does free software do us if we cannot modify it and continue to run the modified code? We already don't own many of the things we buy - proprietary software, music, movies and many other things. Now we won't own (control) the hardware we purchase either?
If GNU/Linux had started 20 years later than it did this wouldn't even be an issue. DRM would've killed it before it even got off the ground. Linus would just be the name of a Peanuts character.
Think damn it, think!
MFG: "The system supports both the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and WIMP (Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) platforms."
Manufacturers should be able to go out of business in any method they desire.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
I'm VERY MUCH against TC & the TCG. The whole idea is wrong with me.
Linus says, it's not the GPL's business to forbid the kind of use he cites. I agree with him. I don't think that v3 should impose those restrictions. I don't think that's the way to win this fight.
<spoiler> We won't win this fight. </spoiler>
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
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?
I am very glad to see that Linus is standing up against the GPL and their misguided attempts to oppose trusted computing technology. It means that Linux will continue to be available as a basis for trusted computing research and development.
When you get past the misinformation, errors and outright lies, trusted computing is not as bad as people think it is. It is a technology for enhancing security in a variety of environments. See the TPM thread a few postings down on the slashdot main page for some commentary there.
In my humble opnion, if the FSF starts adding restrictions to its licenses, it will be loosing the 'Free' part of its name. Because free means that you can do anything you want, including somethign you disagree, like adding limitations to the software you are developing. A software license shouldn't tell you how to build or develop your software, only how to distribute it.
As a matter of fact, this denial to DRM in the GPL uses the exact same philosophy that they are so against, the license is forbidding the user from taking specific actions. I am completely against DRM, I think it's one of the most stupid an idiotic ideas ever implemented, but you have to allow people to choose what they want to do.
On the flip side of the lock in that he is talking about is another problem. Unsupported hardware. Linux has TONS of drivers for hardware that no one even bothers to support anymore. How can I add to what that hardware does if I am locked in?
Or take for example Broadcom. They do not even release ANY drivers for their hardware for linux. They do not support it.
I for one smell a fork of the linux kernel coming.
I'm getting paid for working on OSS this summer. And no, it's not a SoC project.
Whether or not software is free (as in freedom) and whether or not you get paid for working on it are entirely orthogonal issues. I think a lot of people fail to realize this.
Pirate Party UK
> I assume other OSS projects are this way too, where one person does most of the work, posts it publicly, the public doesn't add anything to the project
This could be true for many OSS projects, not for all. Usually the most popular projects do also get most of the contributions from the community. I have for example send patches to several open source projects. If people are not interested about your project, they won't propably do any developing for it either.
It also matters how easy it is to get into the code and how easy it is to find out what part of the code does what etc. Documentation (or lack of it) and support (answering questions) matters a lot.
I would recommend that no-one starting an open source project would assume that they can just start the project and community will then take over and finish it. Usually it takes a lot of hard work and the person starting the project needs to make the software at least to the level where it is so good that people would actually use it. First you need to get a large user base, after that, people might start sending patches if it is easy enough. After that, someone submitting several patches might be interested in joining as a developer, after a while that person could become one of the main developers and then you won't be alone anymore.
But best practice I have seen is to team up with people you already know and start a project with them. That way the project might have progress, even when one or more of you don't have time or motivation to continue. But again, don't assume that others would help you. They might and propably do at the start, but it is very common that they stop eventually.
But then again, we have projects that have been abandoned by the developer, and someone has forged the project and started maintaining it. So all isn't lost when the project is open source, if it just is good enough for someone to take over.
Community built software works, if there's enough demand for the software. Niche applications are going to find very little developer support, but widely used apps like: GNU/Linux, Apache, Tomcat, PHP, MySQL, PostGres, Bind, dhcpd, sendmail, qmail, etc. find lots of support. It is in everyone's interest (minus a few commercial software companies like Microsoft) to make this software work better.
I don't have a clue what 'dragonrealms' is. I doubt there's widespread demand, so you don't have much of a pool of people to pull resources from. Given that it's an 'old game', you're probably going to find most people interested in playing, rather than coding. That doesn't mean that the open source model doesn't work -- just that it doesn't work for that particular niche application.
By my point of view a benevolent dictator is still a dictator.
We should thank Torvalds to keep the questioning open, otherwise it would be like Christian Church: the Pope speaks, the lambs obey.
The article also makes a very saddening statement: the GPL3 is basically written by the companies behind the FSF. The article cites that HP is pushing to have their own interests protected. Do you really think that other GPL-oriented companies (like IBM or Novell) will just stay and look or they will also try to drive the boat towards their coasts?
After all, FSF made just a favour to many commercial distributions (another case of uninterested philantrophism?), claryfying that if you have to fork a distro, you have to redistribute every single packet by yourself, instead of shipping only the relevant, modified ones like GPL says. GPL is too generalized and vague. You can't have a license that has hundreds of pages of "clarifications" continuosly swapped and rewritten to praise an actor or to damage another. Most of the clarifications are just more ambiguos or simply idiotic. Do you know that by FSF interpretation, subclassing or implementing an interface is considered a derivative work? That's makes impossible to use any object oriented library released over LGPL by the term of the license, they will be as plain and simple GPL licensed code. There's a lot of OOP libraries wrongly placed in the LGPL domain. Do you really think that their author bothered about the implications? They just followed the leader. For not good reason and without a clue. Why LGPL3 talks only about header files and libraries? Open source licenses should be technlogy neutral and C/C++ is not the only language out there. Sure our benevolent dictator may pretend that the other technologies are not there gut they will not fade away. Today IT rarely uses anything compiled aside core OS programs and it's hard to find a place for the delusional aims of a puppet in the hands of other non-Microsoft corporations.
Sure A guru's life is expensive and big corporations makes hefty donations. Let Stallman explain to us mortals why Microsoft has to be destroyed and IBM or HP are valiant partners whose interests are to be protected.
HP advanced pressures to make the GPL3 more friendly towards their PATENTS! The world got upside down or what?
Matteo Anelli
.brain - http://www.dot-brain.com
We'll certainly NOT win this fight with such a defeatist attitude!
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
Can someone tell me what the deficiencies are in GPLv2 that have created this need for an upgrade? I'm just curious what the motivation is. Is it only DRM? All I've heard about GPLv3 regards DRM and encryption keys. Is there anything else noteworthy that it changes from v2?
...does it run Linus? :-)
IMHO, Richard is still misguided in his anti-DRM efforts. You don't need DRM to prevent people from running their own version of software on proprietary hardware. Intel could sell TiVo a processor with modified op-codes and a modified assembler to match (or insert some other mod that renders GCC unusable on their hardware). TiVo could run all the free software they want and give you source code, but without the "special" tool chain you'd be screwed. No keys or DRM required. DRM is just a special case of the problem FSF would really like to address. Is FSF prepared to require that people distribute hardware specs with the software? How about just a tool chain to build from source and run on the hardware supplied? How easy does the build process have to be? It's not an easy goal, but ranting about DRM in particular isn't the solution.
The GPLv3 as written does not forbid running software covered by it on a TPM system. What it says is that when a TPM platform vendor distributes GPLv3 software as binaries signed to run on their platform, they must not only provide the source code as in v2, but also the keys required to get modified versions of that particular software to run on the platform.
Example case studies:
A possible workaround is for the vendor to design a special subsystem that has application-specific keys that restrict the application to only carrying the restricted subset of low-level operations that it is supposed to. As long as the binaries the vendor distributes are signed with that key, that's the only key they need to distribute.
For instance, if Tivo were using a piece of GPLv3 software to process & display TV listings, they could use a key that allows the software to run on their platform but only to access the TV listings file and a pipe to send control signals down. They could then distribute that key with the source code and be in perfect compliance.
Of course, this wouldn't be very efficient except for fairly trivial user-space programs. It certainly wouldn't work for a kernel!
Pirate Party UK
The V2 is about rights for the developers. It guarentees that we have future rights to enhance or fix issues with the software. The V3 is an attempt to give rights to the end users. Basically, it guarentees that they have the right to update the software (AND data) on that particular piece of hardware. Roughly it ties software and hardware together, whereas V2 is just software.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
i don't know if he IS, but the way i see is he just made a public remark of some trascendence on GPL, and i find it senseful for him to want to snatch a thread and extend his point of view, now he could be not mr torvalds, but that is for mr T to come out and say so publicly if he would be to care to do it, and in the meantime the guy is just signing Linus and every else is adressing him as such... not letting the subject of is or isn't HE to divert them from the subject at hand...
penguin out
Which, of course, is what people said about the original GPL and its aims too. Is it winning that fight? Perhaps not, but it hasn't lost it either.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Good thoughts, and yes difficult. However isn't part of the purpose of the GPL to have a single, unified license for the OSS community. Instead of everybody rolling their own, it was supposed to be the end-all be-all of "open" licenses.
Wouldn't it be nice if we got to a point where there was a saying like: "Nobody ever got fired for recommending GPL"
I do like you better since you said you were a vi guy though...
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
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.
While I disagree with your overall assessment, you bring up some good points regarding free v. proprietary. Free software does have pitfalls, as you discovered. Many many OSS projects fail. There is a huge amount of redundancy and possibly wasted effort.
The main thing that proprietary software offers over free software is the financial carrot as a lure. (This is not to say that one cannot make money or benefit financially from creating OSS. One can, but it's not so clear cut.) Now, in the case of your failed project, you could have hired people to work on it with you, but obviously that would have been a losing proposition for you. So how can you motivate people without cold hard cash?
I think it comes down to three things.
1) You need itchy people. If your project has the potential to scratch many people's itches, you are more likely to find other people willing to devote time to developing your project. Maybe your game client software just didn't have a big enough audience.
2) You need management skills. Especially important if you are not paying people! You need to jolly them along to get them to do what you want. This applies to both paid and unpaid work, but is absolutely essential for unpaid work. If you don't have the leadership skills, or failing that, aren't good at conning and manipulation, expect your road to be lonely.
3) You need to make it as easy as possible for users to do your QA work for you. This is often cited as one of the failures of OSS, but improvements can help a great deal. Does your app have a built in bug reporting feature? What other avenues of easy bug reporting do you use? What feedback to you provide (if any) to bug reporting users? What support (if any) do you provide to your users?
The bottom line is that if one wants their OSS project to be a success in the community, one needs to gain traction in the community. Source Forge is littered with projects that never gained traction. (Yet the efforts aren't entirely lost! Theoretically, someone could pick up where a project left off at any time.)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
what they're worried about is that the general purpose computers they use are so powerful and flexible, the end user will unlock functionality on a low end platform that's meant for a high end platform. Take a $100 Linux compatible linksys router and some deft use of iptables and suddenly you've got a $300+ top of the line model.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
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?
These types of little entities break your perspective badly.
Boo, vi! Go ema... ...oh, what's the point!
I use GPL V2 (wording is gpl 2.0 or later). I see no equivilent licence I can use that is better then the GPL.
Yes it has its faults, but I can't find anything better.
I will admit to being nervous about GPL 3.0. I'm doing a new release soon, and I may change the wording to gpl 2.0 *only*. I'm not sure yet, I need to do more research on the issue first
More interestingly, the question is what affiliations, if any, the "real" Linus (on "a leave-of-absense" in his own words?) still entertains with Transmeta, who reportedly just created the FlexGo hardware (which looks very much like what GPLv3 tries to prevent) for Microsoft - and what restrictions (e.g. on deservedly slamming DRM at least as applied to code rather than content -much rather than slamming the FSF!- in public) may result from that?
PJ Deleted Linus' first comment due to language restrictions, but has redacted the swearing, reposted and continued the discussion (and the discussion reads like Linus, so I believe in MathFox's opinion on the identity of these posts). The discussion is well worth the read, no matter if Linus has PGP signed his posts or not.
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
So what's the difference between the example that Linus gives, and DRM? The purpose. In his example, the company wants to restrict users from running software that has not been approved by the company. This sounds a lot like some Microsoft initiatives put forward during the early Vista days about only running signed software. This is supposedly to protect users from malicious software. DRM on the otherhand is about preventing users from using software and data that they have no rights to. The purposed are very different, but the mechanism is the same. This is similar to the government installing wiretaps in central phone switching offices. It can be used for good or bad... but given enough time, it will be used for the worse. I don't have anything against DRM in private software, but I tend to agree with banning it in the GPL.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
It makes me sad to see Linus' mind rotting like this but I can't support that attitude in any way. I'm going to be switching my machines to Free and OpenBSD, with the GNU userland if possible. Now things get interesting. I want a GPL3 OS kernel to run my Free software on. Can the v2 licensed Linux kernels be forked and relicensed under GPL3?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
this is where I would differ from what's written and this is changed from the last draft. I think they even worded it wrong. I think the author confused works and services with allowing the software to run on hardware that's two different things.
You should be able to download the source from the distributor and load it into the machine. The orginal V2 draft only mentioned encryption keys required to run the code on hardware not connect to services. The second part is too far, I'd like to see the reasoning on it. Why should a manufacturer have to support your modifications on their network or allow their media to run without protection. The classic example is Tivo. Once TiVo has cable card support and HDMI they won't be legally allowed to give you that access to certian things because you may do something illegal with the machine, like copy DVDs or steal cable tv. On the other hand, they do need to give the necessary drivers and tools to properly use the hardware, that's a slightly different thing. The situation becomes sticky when regulations are involved. Things like Wifi where the engineers got "cheap" and relied on sofware drivers to maintain regulatory compliance is where the real problem is. With DMCA, they just do it anyway and sue anybody who tells. Problem is that it excludes huge numbers of people from the device when they should be using hardwired chips for the firmware.
My belief, from reading lwn, kerneltrap and the lkml regularly, as well as being a student developer, is that Linus is really testing the waters with his 'stance'. Each and every time I read what he says, I see that he doesnt quite "get it".
I'm not a Linus fan by heart, but I'm almost always siding with him and many of the key issues published (thankfully LWN's JC et al tend to shed light in both directions). For some reason what he says about the 2nd GPL v3 draft is *NOT* what I'd expect him to say... It doesnt fit with his history and character.
Maybe his time at Transmeta has clouded is judgement? Assuming it hasn't... while assuming Dave J doesn't push RH specific stuff (bait)... then I think this shows a slightly more important, and definately touchier subject:
Linus' opinion is becoming irrelevant.
Starting, commanding, and I happily leading a movement is a fantastic achievement; but when he is trying to get in the way of, what *I* can see as a majority developer-view, it saddens me. I hope Linus' opinion is still strong, and still has the same conviction as always after this ordeal, but for some reason, I don't envisage this actually happening (atleast, not in the real world).
So what does it mean if Linus' opinion is less relevant, or even, irrelevant? Does it means BIG patches that nobody really wants will make it into the kernel? Well, yes, Ingo M has shown us that - his forward thinking has, time and time again, proven to be fantastic. Linus' was simply a thick goo you had to nagiviate slowly, before hand.
I would like to see the *development* future of the Linux kernel in the hands of one maintainer. This is how things are better done, decisively. But, I would like the see the future of the linux *presence* split between those who are the real movement makers... AC, IM, RLM, RR et al. Linus, by his own admission, doesnt have to listen to the community - he delegates that role, and by his delegation, I believe he has fallen out of touch with the true spirit that surrounds him. Only some focused steps into the kernel maintainership will help to truely balance political decisions like this...
Matt
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.
I am sure you love the argument of whether the GPL or the BSD is more free.
:-)
That argument is stupid.
That said, the GPL guarantees more net freedom for the users, so its more "free".
Ah, so its those that think of the greater good and net freedom for users who are narrow minded.
Those who think of how to get that damned program working already -- they are the real thinkers!
I feel like Schroder in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" having to dink-dink-dink on his little piano to get Lucy to recognize "jingle-bells". Another way of asking my question is "Does any version of the GPL allow (technically, not legally) non-signed software to run on a DRM device". The answer to that question is the same as asking if the GPL can circumvent DRM.
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.
Of course the GPL does not, in a technical sense, allow non-signed software to run on a device which is designed not to allow non-signed software to run. (I'm assuming that such a device is what you meant by a DRM device.) This would be flatly impossible except by workarounds and loopholes, which exist quite independently of the license of any computer program exploiting them. I think that this is a not very meaningful answer to a not very meaningful question. Which might just mean that I misunderstood the question.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
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.
It's not Free since it allows a developer to *RESTRICT* the freedoms of users by closing the software. It's about keeping the software free as well as your freedom to use it.
BSD zealots have yet to fully understand that.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
>It's not Free since it allows
Yes, it allows more than the GPL allows. It's more free.
Gnu zealots need to get over themselves.
IMHO, both licenses have their place. I prefer the GPL for my software, but could see using the BSD license if I wrote different software with different purposes in mind.
I believe it comes down to a question of goals (or, basically equivalently, what you think the word "free" is referring to) -- is your goal to set your software free, so that anyone can use it in any way you choose, or is your goal to maximise the amount of free software available in the world, by offering incentives to other developers to make their software free?
For my software, I choose the latter -- I have no burning need for others to be able to make a closed fork. I view my software as Free, but not without a price -- the price is, if you want to modify it, you need to make the modifications GPL as well.
Different views, different licenses. I don't see why it's such a big deal to some people what license other developers choose. If you don't like their license, don't use their software. And while we're at it, get off your high horse and make the world a better place by writing some code (or whatever other means you choose). With whatever license pleases you.
And even for cases like voting machines and ATMs and such, its not really an issue.
For example, the owner of an ATM is the bank whos logo is on it. So, as long as the bank has control over what software runs (something they generally want anyway I would imagine), GPLv3 is not being violated.
In the case of a voting machine, its the electoral commision/state/whoever that owns the machines and would have the keys.
It is always best, when looking aat situations like this, to look at what might just happen....
;)).This browser cannot reach /. so you cannot complain about it here.
As a hardware manufacturare, I could sell you a computer that would only boot a kernel that has been digitally signed by me.
Under GPL v2, I could also write a varient of the Linux kernel that would only load drivers that have been signed by me, and only run applications that have been signed by me. Whilst I have to distribute these modifications to the kernel, I do not have to distribute the private keys. As part of this system, the only web-browser I provide willrestrict you to browsing sites that provide me with a healthy profit from advertising and affiliate revenue (myspace is one of my partners, so the majority of web-traffic is covered
I will also, graciously, allow you to purchase software like the gimp, gpg or Open Office for 100 quid a go. I will also provide the source for these packages, covering my obligations under the GPL.The digital signatures authenticating these binaries also reference your machine's identifier via it's TPM module, thus ensuring that you cannot effectively share this GPL software with your friends (who own similar systems) whilst staying well within the letter of GPL v2.
I could aalso impose other technical restrictions, such as having each digital signature expire in a year so I have a continuous revenue stream for legally leeching off other people's time and effort. Marketing describe this as 'maintenance and upgrades', so you're kept happy).
Whatr, in the above scenario, is different from current proprietary models & 'Shared Source'? Yet all is legal within the wording of GPL v2.
If the Operating System kernel is licensed under the current v2 license, then there is nothing that can be done to stop the above happening. If the OS adopts v3, this is explicitly denied, and you have an open system.
In this situation, GPL v2w offers little more protection to application developers tha the BSD or MIT licenses if you happen to buy the wrong hardware.
Exactly. GPL is to promote open source, BSD is to promote good code. BSD doesn't need to be as big as Linux to do what it's trying to do, it punches well above it's weight because of the difference in goals. Personally, I think OpenBSD is one of the most important open source projects out there for this reason. Tiny market share, but massive influence, and that's the way they want it. Or, to put it another way, GPL is for creating software. BSD is for creating standards.
in which case if you dont buy the restricted hardware, then you dont buy at all.. thank you trusted computing group.. (or whatever it is name you are this week to try to avoid people calling a spade a spade by warning about the draconian DRM youre pushing)
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
if they have a right to try to stop you doing what you please with hardware, then we damn well should have a right to try to stop them from stopping us.. and to make say.. a firm dedicated to selling those solutions.
the DMCA prevents that.. so either they should be prevented from implementing DRM or the DMCA should be repealed, but as it is now there is no balance.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
Seriously, to call the ideologists (whether you agree with them or not) "narrow minded" is really trolling!
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
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.
The hardware you built, but the hardware I bought. Unless I am renting your hardware, I should have the right under the exhaustion doctrines to do whatever I want with my physical property.
What should I buy instead if all the close substitutes of the hardware are equally locked-in?
O RLY? Both GNU GPL v2 and this GPL v3 draft make an exception for libraries distributed with the OS. Heck, I run GCC on top of Windows.
"Fuck" isn't the only 4-letter word. There is also "FPGA".
Copyright fragmentation is already covered. For software to carry the GNU® mark, its copyright must be assigned to Free Software Foundation Inc.
On which platform without vendor lock-in can I play real-time video games with four players in the same room looking at the same screen? Sure, there is PC with USB-in and TV-out, but there are too few native titles, as most developers seem to expect users to buy one computer per family member, put them in a LAN, and buy a separate copy of the game for each player.
If Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all have vendor lock-in on their video game consoles, which video game console should I buy? If TiVo and all its major competitors have vendor lock-in on their DVRs, which DVR should I buy?
The PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Xbox 360 are all "shit", so what "something else" capable of playing multiplayer party style video games do you expect me to spend money on?
Did you say "U.S. stock exchange" specifically to exclude Sony and Nintendo, which trade in Japan?
Clearly Linus has sold out. This is the very clause that would prevent the noose of trusted computing from closing on the next generation pc hardware. It goes like this...
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, if they break the rules then windows won't run on their systems. If they break the rules then multimedia won't work on their systems. The consumer will either have to stop using computers or vote in favor of DRM with their dollar.
No startup will bring out an alternative because not running windows will assure a customer base that is small enough that it can't support the enourmous initial investment required to design a motherboard (not to mention video card and sound card once those require a 'trusted' platform to function).
Linus knows this. He doesn't care, all the evidence suggests that Linus became a whore turning tricks for corporate masters a long time ago. This public outcry against pro-consumer/modder yet anti-profiteer clauses of the GPLv3 can only be the result of payoffs from corporate masters.
It isn't really suprising that Linus has sold out, who knows, maybe any of us would do it in his position. But there is no reason the community has to support him in this.
Isn't that pointless? I mean, hypothetically speaking, if SCO wins and can go after Linux users, it'll have somehow nullified the GPLv2 (since it must have distributed this code in its own Caldera Linux). Which means that every line of Caldera Linux that isn't SCO written (probably millions of lines) is a potential $125,000 against SCO per distribution. At a minimum of 10 million GPL'd lines in Caldera, that works out to at least $1.25 billion per copy of Caldera. If SCO wins, it dies in retaliation.
"...So I make my hardware check the cryptographic signature of the binary before I run it..."
Maybe I don't need to buy your hardware?
If you are a Canadian you can help send this message to parliament by signing our Petition to protect Information Technology property rights.
Today I posted an article to the website of CLUE: The Canadian Association for Open Source, titled "Whose hardware is it anyway?" (Copy on the Digital Copyright Canada forum).
Digital Copyright Canada forum
...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.
My Atari 2600 doesn't have vendor lock-in, does that mean I can play Playstation and XBox games on it?
I guess I don't understand the relevance of your questions to the GPL issue.
Actually, what you're doing is called trolling.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
It allows more freedom for the person. The point is to keep the SOFTWARE free, not to allow someone to, in essence, steal your work. THAT's the point. Sometimes preserving the freedom of the masses means restricting the freedom of the individual.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
This is my first "mod parent up" post (So far as I can remember). The above post really is core to the argument: It shows that GPLv3 does not restirct the most important users of such software. Come on mod's MOD IT UP!
Little Brother, watching the watchers
Popularity does too.
Or doesn't it?
Its not the FSF's goal to be popular, its their goal to promote freedom.
"You should be free to restrict the freedoms of your users" is not a trivial fact that the FSF and Free Software people should or do agree with.
People should not be free to create closed source software, simply because its not a freedom. Its a power over the users' freedoms.
The net effect is the reduction of freedom.
Do you folks ever actually listen to yourselves??
Linus is correct. The right of the manufacturer to be able to restrict software precedes the right of the customer to choose what software to run.
This is because the customer can simply choose not to buy the hardware to begin with. But what if the hardware is needed yet monopolized? What if you really want that Dell, but it restricts you to windows NTFS filesystems? The answer is that
a) You can boycott the hardware and all the money that went into R&D will be lost by that nasty manufacturer, then send hatemail to let them know their mistake.
b) The GPL should prevent monopolies and other patent system follies.
The balancing of "customer support headache" and "losing money to freedom headache" is an internal company matter.
Four entry-level PCs (each bundle including a monitor) for $600 each, or one $250 Wii and one $200 TV? What will a parent decide to buy?
They'll stick with GPL2.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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.
It's a common misconception that copyright only covers distribution. It also gives the author exclusive rights to modify the work.
The end user must abide by the GPL if they modify GPL software without redistribution.
The GPL does not really place any restrictions on modification without redistribution, however. It could, though, without venturing into EULA land.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
"You folks"?? I assume you're talking about us "GPL folks" And, yes, I know exactly what I'm saying. :) Both licenses have merit, one is not better than the other. I, personally, don't use the BSD license because it would enable a company to take my work and, effectively, steal it and creating their own closed derivative. I prefer the GPL since it makes certain that the software that I've written remains free to use, even when someone modifies and redistributes it.
Given that about 68%-75% of all open source and free software is GPL'd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL), it seems that the BSD license has found it's niche, but that most people feel the same way I do.
Later, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
In some genres. Not everybody wants to play first-person shooters or real-time sims. How would a separate view per player benefit a side-view fighting game similar to Street Fighter II or Smash Bros.? What about games where the whole playfield fits in the screen, such as Bomberman or a tennis sim, or games with a vertical playfield, such as Frozen Bubble or StepMania? Do enough genres benefit from multiple views to justify the extra $2,000 for three extra machines and displays in a household?
I guess it will take free games to make the PC into a platform for shared-view gaming. But given that the free software philosophy is less widespread among artists than among programmers, and the market will choose locked-in consoles over free-software-capable PCs if it means enduring "programmer art", how can free software programmers reach out to artists?
Take turns? In what household? In fact, there are a lot of parents who won't buy 1-player games because it means the children will commit battery on each other over who gets to play it next and who, who, and who have to sit on their hands for an hour.
I read it, and its an interesting concept. I was wondering if it was a type (copywrite) but then I noticed further on that its spelled properly in the text itself.
I can understand the 3 years provision, but it should only be on the code you actually "touch" or modify. Anything you pass on, you're just helping the original author get a wider audience. You shouldn't be penalized for doing something good.
For the time being, I'm using v2, and I don't see a compelling reason to switch to v3. The few things I've released I specifically limited to v2 (I removed the "or later version" text becauee I'm a bit of a cynic, and I don't like the idea of open-ended one-sided agreements :-).
Heck, if it gets too messy, we can all just redo everything in c and java and go binary-only, and just swap the source with people who email and ask nicely. Not the best solution ... but we may very well end back up there in a few years if too many people get bit by the 3-year bug.
Lets face it, for small stuff, its not a problem, but for something that takes a lot of space on a server, you could run into significant costs. Someone who's doing this as a good-will gesture and then runs into financial problems (from, say, job loss or divorce) doesn't need people suing him because he/she can no longer afford to pay for hosting all the files.
With distros now taking up a full dvd (I'm wondering when we're going to see the first "doesn't fit on only 1 dvd" distro), we can be talking serious coin.
"So although the GPL/Open software is pretty good, the best software is the closed source commercial software."
So why are you using this many FOSS tools to make your claim? I'd have expected you to write this, oh, I don't know, on a piece of paper somewhere where people care, because you could hardly use the FOSS-filled internet to make your claim carry any weight.
Security is good if I am the one in control of it. You may want (insert your government here) monitoring you, but I don't. Trusted computing is only good if it's controlled by someone I trust. That would be me. It's funny how Microsoft puts out the most insecure system out there, but vendors are worried about security in unix boxes? Keep your security to yourself.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
Interesting. Of course, an ad hominem argument doesn't make me wrong any more than it makes you right, does it? I mean, if we're talking logic and all.
Assuming that we are actually talking about logical argument. Your initial request was "OK, so explain how GPLv3 is going to make it possible to circumvent the DRM." The implied argument was the the GPLv3 does not make it possible. The response was simply that it would create an environment conducive to it, thereby enabling it (albiet not technically, but politically). This in a very real sense is circumvention. In context, the GPLv3 circumvents DRM like the GPL originally circumvented restrictive software licensing. It compelled no one directly, and yet acted as a powerful force to enable FOSS. Rather than clarify that you meant this in a technical sense and that it was stated clearly, you resort to "begging the question", an equally common logical fallacy to ad hominem.
After viewing your volume of posts on this thread, I deduced that something other than rational thought drove you to exigence in this forum. I propose that you are trolling.
Trolling is simply the act of going somewhere and saying something the people there won't like to garner attention. I perceive (perhaps incorrectly) that this is your motivation.
You are correct in that I am not attacking your argument--I am attacking you. I feel that what you do is about as useful discussing software licensing as PETA members dressing up as slaughtered pigs and picketing a McDonalds is in discussing animal cruelty. You have crossed the line between raising awareness of an issue to grandstanding for personal gratification.
Regardless, use of ad hominem against a troll hardly justifies your argument.
Besides, if I was commited to ad hominem, I would have noted that my slashdot ID is lower than yours so you must be ignorant and uninformed.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Linus presumes that hardware manufacturers mean and play nice. The FSF presumes the hw guys will use DRM to cripple GPLd software and the GPL. Both have a point. I actually think of the FSFs presumtion to be realistic. In the end it doesn't matter, because people can choose which GPL they use.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So what happens if a majority (not necessarily 100%) decide that future contributions to the kernel shall be under GPLv3? Or if they forked the kernel the way XF86 became X.org? The current kernel would be grandfathered as GPLv2, but any new code contributions would be GPLv3. The result would be a kernel that has some code licenced under GPLv2 and increasing amounts under GPLv3, and unless the recipient is willing to strip out the GPLv3 stuff, (an increasingly difficult and impractical task) they would be subject to the restrictions of both licences. This would make it subject to the more restrictive GPLv3 by default. Code with multiple licences are not at all unusual, early versions of Windows had a lot of BSD stuff. Eventually the GPLv2 stuff would be written out and the kernel would be entirely GPLv3.
My rights don't need management.
mmm... look, in case it wasn't apparent, I came in halfway through this thread, and only then because I thought your points about mod chips and homebrew hardware were flawed. I don't have any particular emotional investment in the original point
Still, I wonder if it's safe to say that the GPL V3 won't make DRM go away. I mean it's starting to lookl like V2 might make proprietory software go away, at least in the long term. But let's say that you're right, and that the GPL is never going to solve DRM. I still don't think that makes GPL V3 "broken", since that presupposes that the sole point of the licence was to make DRM go away, and I don't think anyone has ever claimed that.
Possibly. But that doesn't mean the problem cannot be addressed in licencing. Solutions do not have to arise from the same domain as the problem they address, nor are we restricted to a single measure for any given problem.
Yes, yes, all very true. All you need now is to find someone who is actually arguing otherwise and you'll have a devastating rebuttal. What I was saying in this thread was that the average consumer is unlikely to build a computer just so he can try out some free software. We have enough trouble persuading people to do that on pre-built boxes which they already own. If the only he can try out free software is by building his own box, then the free software movement is in for some serious downsizing.
I think we can agree that this would be an undesireable outcome.
I think we disagree at the word "totally". Yes the consumers have a role to play in the fight against DRM, and yes, probably the dominant one. But you seem to be suggesting that it's none of the developer's business and that they should all just butt out and let the market decide.
And that's where I have a problem. I think if a developer wants to licence his own software with a clause that precludes anyone running it on a DRM system, then that's always going to be their privilege.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
DRM is being used to prevent legal operations, like backup of data and software. If I want to backup my Tivo hard drive, I have that right (in the US). Companies abusing the trust of gift economy by putting GPL code behind cloaks like DRM, DCMA, and patents, and the license is a technical solution. Since people who write the code have the choice of how to license it (unlike people subjected to DRM), how can a choice of license (gplv2, modified GPL2, or GPL3) be wrong? If I want to run Apple software in Intel hardware, I'm forced into buying Apple hardware, which comes with mandatory (hardware DRM). I can get source code under Apple licenses for darwin for PPC, but not Intel. Why?
I agree that the whole drm'd tivo thing sucks, but again, nobody is being forced to buy a tivo. You can buy other dvrs that allow you to make copies. You can buy dvd recorders that will record your tv shows directly to dvd for $150.00 at the local grocery store, so what's all this tivo tivo tivo shit? You have choices. You have alternatives.