FSF Rattles Tivo Saber At Apple

Ohreally_factor takes us back to Friday when both the iPhone and the GPLv3 were released. "This article at Tectonic suggests that Apple's iPhone might run afoul of the GPL. Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF is quoted as saying: 'Today, Steve Jobs and Apple release a product crippled with proprietary software and digital restrictions: crippled, because a device that isn't under the control of its owner works against the interests of its owner. We know that Apple has built its operating system, OS X, and its web browser Safari, using GPL-covered work — it will be interesting to see to what extent the iPhone uses GPLed software.' Might there really be GPLed code in the iPhone? It's well known that OS X built on BSD, which of course uses the BSD license. Webkit is based on KHTML which uses the LGPL."

Comments

Re:Apple running afoul of Microsoft licensing?

[arivanov]

You are mistaking patents for copyright and vice versa.

As far as the iPhone software is concerned this is all a storm in a teacup. The real storm will start later.

If the postings so far on various security boards are correct it looks like it indeed runs something OSX like enough and runs everything even the web browser as ROOT. Now if that is not a hacker dream dunno what is. Every exploit no matter how small will provide the attacker with full access to the system including ability to break out of the ghastly contract obligations to ATT and Apple. While the lack of fine grained privilege system is a general problem for all smartphones, in the apple's case it is made worse by the platform being "bigger" and everything having direct access to the iron.

It is too early to say if the iPhone will be the first phone where the admin vs user and privilege control issue will be finally forced, but there is a considerable likelihood of this happening. Once this happens, it will also inevitably open up as a platform (and we will soon know exactly how much (X)GPL code it contains).

Re:"Run afoul?"

[Enderandrew]

Even then, wouldn't the new license only apply to new releases?

If the GPL v3 was retroactive, Tivo would have to recall all their boxes right this second. However, I don't think you can have a retroactive license. You can't invent terms today and say that people agreed to them in the past.

Can you imagine what that would open the door to?

I'm sorry, you inherently agreed to anything Microsoft ever wants from you when you agreed to use any flavor of Windows at any point in your life. We can invent new licenses and terms that go back and override any previous license agreements.

Tivoization...

[DrYak]

...and the usual TiVo-like excuse to this is :

"Yes, you CAN rebuild a firmware. All the necessary tools can be found on our website or in your Linux distro.
If you follow the procedure, no error message will stop you from linking your new stuff.
This firmware can even be executed inside an emulator, as an added bonus.

It only happens that the hardware refuses to run non-signed and/or non-crypted code, even if that code is valid. But the produced binary code it selft *is* valid."

Those company usually try to give a very specific interpretation to what "operating code" means. To their interpretation, it only means that the users should be able to compile a new valid binary. That's why the GPLv3 had to be made, to make it explicit for LGPL, and to add similar protection against tivoization of the baseline GPL.

Apple and TiVo are intentionally making that interpretation. Because they want to keep exact control on what the iPhone can and can't do. The iPhone can't transfer files over bluetooth (no way to send each other ringtones and MP3 music like usual with other Bluetooth enabled device. Apple is affraid of copyright infringement, even if the Bluetooth falls clearly under the same provision as home taping in most juridictions), the iPhone enforces DRM on played media, etc...

A modified WebKit could clearly play a role as an entry point to allow such actions : after all, it's the code that handles how pages are drawn. It's not impossible to invent a new "tag", include support for this extension into the iPhone, and use that tag to manipulate media while circumventing DRM or exchanging it over bluetooth. And then design a custom .HTML file that uses those custom tags to serve as a menu for this added functionality.
It's a little bit weird and far fetched. But it's exactly the kind of stuff corporation like Apple and TiVo are afraid of : people using GPL to circumvent their precious restrictions. And is exactly what the FSF is fighting for :
{commandment-like voice:ON}A USER SHALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO WHAT PLEASES HIM WITH FREE(dom)-SOFTWARE HE RECEIVED, AS LONG AS THE USERS PASS ALONG THOSE FREEDOMS ON THE NEXT IN LINE{/commandment-like voice:OFF} (even if that includes completely subverting the initial GPLed code purpose in order to make it do something completely different than initially planed. In fact, even more so, because it's such creative subversions that can lead to inventing new interesting stuff and develop FLOSS. As said in some /. sigs, after all, GNU/Linux is nothing more than a printer driver gone terribly wrong).

Re:How isn't this FUD?

[mrchaotica]

What I'm saying, is that if you really think that just because something _can_ be done, it _is_ being done, well, you're just not that interesting. Sorry. Nobody cares if you went to the beer store on thursday instead of wednesday this week. Unless you're an active suspect that is specifically being watched, there's no reason to watch you. And, if you are an active suspect, you're being watched anyway. So this is a null problem.

It's not a null problem! Why? Because you could become interesting. For example, what if you happened to frequent the same restaraunt as some criminal? Even though you had no association with him, the cellphones records would show the two of you "meeting" regularly, which could land you on a watch list purely by dumb (bad) luck. Or what if you witness a government official doing something he shouldn't, and he wants to shut you up? Well, congratulations: he now has a record of all your movement habits. Or what if your health insurance company decides that going to the Taco Bell drive through twice a week is too often, and raises your rate? What if your psycho ex happens to work at the phone company, and decides to start stalking you?

Here's my point: tracking data could be abused in an unlimited number of ways, even if you're a "normal" person.