Torvalds Critiques of GPLv3 and FSF Refuted

j00bar writes "After Linus Torvalds' impassioned critiques of the second draft of GPLv3 and the community process the FSF has organized, Newsforge's Bruce Byfield discovered in conversations with the members of the GPLv3 committees that the committee members disagree; they believe not only has the FSF been responsive to the committees' feedback but also that the second draft includes some modifications in response to Torvalds' earlier criticisms." NewsForge and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

Comments

I can see both sides

[Lord Kano]

The FSF intends to use the GPL as a means to prevent people from doing certain "bad" things with free software. I get that and I support the idea. Linus seems to have chosen the GPL for practical reasons. He didn't want the code that he and so many others poured their hearts and souls into to be stolen and closed like the Cedega situation.

I suspect that Linus just wants to make his software while the FSF wants to change the world.

LK

Re:I can see both sides

[Anonymous Coward]

"He didn't want the code that he and so many others poured their hearts and souls into to be stolen and closed like the Cedega situation."

The thing is, changes in the GPL (mainly those dealing with DRM) are absolutely necessary if you don't want code to be "stolen and closed." It's not some theoretical, idealistic thing. It's an extremely practical consideration.

If you write a program and release it under the GPL, and if it's permissible to make derivative versions that will no longer run when modified (due to DRM in hardware), then I can take and build upon your code and never give the improvements back. You may be able to see the source, but you can't use my changes because your future alterations will no longer execute on the hardware you own. I can also sell hardware including your code, and even though the GPL intends that my customers should thus have the right to modify the code -- they can't.

Allowing commingling of DRM and GPLed code is a huge loophole. It essentially allows someone to make a proprietary branch of your code. From then on, you can still look, but you can't touch.

As for patents, that's another very similar situation. By claiming patents on my modifications to your GPLed code, I can make my own proprietary branch of your code. You can no longer build upon my changes, because to do so would be a patent infringement... but I can freely take yours.

Re:I can see both sides

[DrJimbo]

Lord Kano said:

I suspect that Linus just wants to make his software while the FSF wants to change the world.

The FSF wants to change the world so that people like Linus will continue to be free to create and modify their free and open source software.

Without the DRM provisions in the GPLv3 that Linus is complaining about, we could eventually face a situation where it is literally impossible to develop FOSS for the latest generation of computers. Worse, those computers could be running the GPLv2 software we wrote even though we have lost all of our rights to further modify it and we've lost the right to even choose what software we run on our own computers.

Re:I can see both sides

[init100]

You may be able to see the source, but you can't use my changes because your future alterations will no longer execute on the hardware you own.

The way Linus sees it is from the "developer" viewpoint. The code is still free from this viewpoint, since all modifications are published. You can modify it and run it on a DRM-free machine. The FSF rather thinks of the "end users" viewpoint, where modifying the code and running the modified code on the same machine is paramount.

For myself, I understand Linus view, but I tend to go along with the FSF view. Being unable to modify free software on a hardware device and run it on the same device violates the spirit of free software. The vendor could build upon the mountain of free code, saving a lot of money in the process (i.e. not reinventing the wheel), but does not grant any of these freedoms to their customers.

So to sum it up, I'd say they can write their own OS, or license a commercial one, if they don't want to give their customers the same freedoms they have.

Re:I can see both sides

[Rutulian]

The way Linus sees it is from the "developer" viewpoint. The code is still free from this viewpoint, since all modifications are published. You can modify it and run it on a DRM-free machine.

That's the short-sightedness of Linus' argument (the same short-sightedness that let him get trapped by the Bitkeeper fiasco). There are DRM-free machines now, but that doesn't mean there will be in the future. If the media companies have their way, every desktop computer will have a TPM chip in it, and if you want to view things like HD-content, it has to be enabled and running. So a company can take a project, like say mplayer, make a version that plays their video format, decrypting the stream via the TPM hardware, and then sign the binary and then sell it. Congratulations, a company has just saved themselves a couple of years of development time to make a video player to help sell their video files, and you can't modify it at all. If you modify it, it reverts to just plain old mplayer without the ability to use the code that was added. That defeats the purpose of the GPL. Linus really needs to wake up here. Yes, proprietary software has a right to exist, but pretending a company won't take advantage of free software to reduce their development costs (without giving anything back, if they can) is stupid. The GPL allows commercial use of free software as long as you give a fair share back to the community. It is not some fiendish scheme to force all software to be free as some people would say. The GPL as it is has worked fine for the last decade, but now it needs to change or it will no longer serve its purpose.

Re:yeah but guess who owns the future?

[Mornelithe]

Yes, yes. Quite right. Hardly anybody uses gcc, or glibc, or gdb, or emacs, or bash, or...

Damn those FSF nuts for never writing any software that's good enough for use. After all, everyone knows that all you need is a bare kernel to get things done.

Re:Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll go you one further, and I hope Linus gets to read this. His behavior regarding this new draft is starting to cost him significant respect, and he's also hurting both the free software camp, and his own open source group, while providing Rovian press material for some real class A crooks. Linus is a great developer, but he needs to show a little moderation, and a little more respect for Richard Stallman. Call him what you will, but Stallman's vision regarding the GPL to this point has been beyond genius. And if it was not for Stallman's vision and tenacious courage (with Eben Moglen's help) in the face of just about every kind of demeaning criticsm and ploy one could imagine, Linus would still be in Finland, himself eating herring every day and trying to get Windows to stop crashing.

Stallman's license has stymied a large nest of very nasty people for 20 years, people who would steal Linus blind if it weren't for Stallman and his vision. And given Stallman's record, dedication, and results, if he sees issues with patents and DRM, if I were Linus, I'd listen first, and then ask respectful questions via professional channels.

Based on the past 20 years, and the benefits that will accrue to all of us due to his work, Richard Stallman is deserving of a Nobel prize nomination. Linus is just a developer and project manager, and he should show Stallman commensurate respect.

jwwjr

Re:yeah but guess who owns the future?

[ultranova]

All the elegance, stability, security and network-savviness of the work computer now available at home. Very nice. And the GNU tools made that possible, yes. But the free kernel was the keystone to that arch, I think. Linux could have squeaked by with few less GNU tools (albeit not without GCC), but I think all the GNU tools would have remained curiosities without the free kernel.

The GNU project was trying to create a free version of Unix - the GNU system - and was going about it in a systematic fashion, one tool at the time. The kernel was left until last, and Linux simply happened to come at the right moment, when most of the system was already up and running but the kernel wasn't.

As it happens, the GNU project does have a working kernel of their own, HURD. HURD never really took off, mainly because Linux got the snowball effect going - it got some users, some of whom began co-developing it, making it better, which in turn gained it more users and more developers and so on. Linux has almost all the developers, so HURD has almost none.

But thinking that Linux is the true success story and the GNU project just a less important side path is absurd. It's the GNU project that made Linux possible, not the other way around.

What I'm saying is that I think the future belongs more to people like Linus -- that they will have more lasting influence -- because, as the OP said, they seems more focussed on getting stuff out the door, and the FSF (and RMS in particular) seem more focussed on making sure it's the right stuff, built with the right moral philosophy, isn't going to exploit the masses or give you karma, et cetera.

You think that Linux - a single operating system kernel - is going to have more lasting influence than the whole free software movement, of which the Linux kernel is just a part of ? Especially when what allowed Linux to grow in the first place was the development model made possible by the GPL ?

I beg to differ.

Re:yeah but guess who owns the future?

[anothy]

The GNU project was trying to create a free version of Unix - the GNU system - and was going about it in a systematic fashion, one tool at the time. The kernel was left until last, and Linux simply happened to come at the right moment, when most of the system was already up and running but the kernel wasn't.

where's my "-1 Wrong" modifier? saying GNU was trying to create a free Unix is simply laughable. you know what it stands for, right? HURD was never intended to be unix, it was intended to be something else entirely. the GNU toolset was developed on Unix because that was the best development environment available, and happened to also be the most similar to GNU's vision for HURD. the fact that the GNU tools look vaguely unix-like (at best; --some-really-long-option, for example, is decidedly un-unixy) is almost more of a coincidence. they were explicitly not trying to create a free Unix.

As it happens, the GNU project does have a working kernel of their own, HURD. HURD never really took off, mainly because Linux got the snowball effect going - it got some users, some of whom began co-developing it, making it better, which in turn gained it more users and more developers and so on. Linux has almost all the developers, so HURD has almost none.

HURD never took off due to the lack of a clearly articulated vision, lack of leadership, and the fact that Linux filled most of the true goals of the contributors: "gimme something free i can use that mostly works". sure, Linux getting all the flash in the media and schools biases people towards working on that over other kernels, but HURD can't put all their failings on Linux's shoulders. the various BSD's - hell, even Plan 9 - manage to progress further and more quickly than HURD does, despite HURD being the pet project of GNU's nominal head.

But thinking that Linux is the true success story and the GNU project just a less important side path is absurd. It's the GNU project that made Linux possible, not the other way around.

really? can you document that? to me, it sounds like speculation. i disagree, and think it's the other way around: without a useful core, the tools would've remained just a curiosity. by contrast, by 1994 (at the latest; possibly as early as 1991), Linux could've just used the BSD user-land stuff (and, IMHO, we'd all have been better off). Linux didn't make GNU possible, that's true - but it made it relevant.

You think that Linux - a single operating system kernel - is going to have more lasting influence than the whole free software movement, of which the Linux kernel is just a part of ?

that's not what the parent said. he said the future belongs to people like Linus more than people like RMS. that's true. even within the GNU world there's these differences in outlook and the results become apparent.

Especially when what allowed Linux to grow in the first place was the development model made possible by the GPL ?

stop drinking GNU's cool-aid. what allowed Linux to grow initially was the open space for a free unix-like system on the most common cheap hardware. initially, the "development model" was Linus hacking on things. then it was a bunch of people hacking on things, and Linus putting the bits together. the development model was not new, and was not invented by GNU.

But does it help?

[pnambic]

As far as I can see it, DRM technology poses three distinct major threats to developers' and users' freedoms:

1. locked digital media
This is where the GPLv3 works, sort of. You cannot take a GPLv3ed media player, add some DRM component, and distribute the result while keeping the key that unlocks the media secret. That's fair. Unfortunately, there is a large range of non-GPLed media players available. In the end, FOSS users will still have to resort to hacks, but they're not worse off in that respect than they are now, and at least the code they worked on won't be used to prevent them from doing what they want.

2. locked FOSS-using devices (the Tivo scenario)
I think the FSF, and software developers advocating GPLv3, are seriously overstepping their bounds here. Basically, they're telling hardware developers that in order to use FOSS, not only do they need to give freely what they freely received (which is just reasonable), but they also have to make THEIR OWN product convertable to any use their customers see fit. This immediately excludes building devices that need to assure overall system integrity (from fair network gaming through to voting machines) and also excludes a number of fairly reasonable business models (hardware has a significantly non-zero duplication cost, unlike software, and the money has to come from somewhere). Alternatively, they can choose to make their machines physically tamper-proof (which defeats the intent of the license, makes the license unverifiable, and the product unrepairable in case of software problems). The net result will simply be that hardware developers will stop considering the use of FOSS, which will lead to them getting what they want anyway, FOSS code getting less exposure and less fixes, and end users receiving an arguably less technologically sound product at a higher price.

3. locked general-purpose computers
The GPLv3 can't do squat about thread 3. If such devices do indeed appear, they will simply not be running FOSS. Ever. Because even if a vendor would like to offer an OS based on some hypothetical GPLv3ed kernel, the license wouldn't allow it.

So, looking at the above, I can't help but think that Linus is right here. I have the utmost respect for RMS and the members of the various committees, I'm even a paid-up and (CD-)card-carrying member of the FSF (#2342), but so far they have failed in providing a satisfactory solution to the problems ahead.

Please prove me wrong.