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Hypervisors Can Defeat GPLv3's Anti-Tivoization
DeviceGuru writes "A hypervisor can be used to isolate from each other software works released under incompatible licenses, while allowing them to run simultaneously on the same hardware. For example, Linux and Windows CE can run on separate virtual machines on one device, without violating either OS's license. Due to the isolation between multiple VMs running atop a hypervisor, it seems like this architecture could allow companies to build Linux-based devices, such as mobile phones or set-top boxes (think TiVo), that can't be upgraded by their users without authorization, thereby circumventing the GPLv3's 'anti-tivoization' clauses." Here's a white paper with more details from a commercial hypervisor company.
Frankly, I'm not sure what the article is trying to state.
If the code is released under GPLv3, then modifications of the code must be able to run on the same hardware. It doesn't matter if the key to run the code is a checksum or a password to give the hypervisor. Either way, if modification of the client cannot be dropped into the place of the original client (either to run on the same hardware or the same hypervisor), it's in abuse of the GPLv3.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
the Anti-Tivoization clause is one the sore points in my book about the GPL 3. Because of the hippocraticy worded in it,
For TiVo being a consumer product is Bad, IBM Being corporate product it is good.
Free Software has a lot of advantages but if you try to get too academic with it it gets to a point where adoption of such products are impractical.
Take the TiVo, what GPLv3 wanted to do was force TiVo to release their DRM so the community has access to their product. What actually happends is TiVo
finds a backdoor to the license and uses it, or drops using open source and any stop to any shared contributions from TiVo and a move to a different
platform.
The License for free software is the cost of using the software. (Except for trading money (and rules) for rights to use, you agree to follow these rules for
rights to use) as more rules you add to the license the more expensive the free software becomes. So if you make FreeSoftware to strict on its use
people won't use it. Academically Free as in speech software sounds like a good plan but real life realizes there is information that you want to keep
private.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yes. When people use legalese to try to lock down software into "freedom" (GPL 3), then people use legalese to get around it.
The resulting product is fundamentally different from a TiVo.
While on TiVo, there is no way to change any part of the code without the signing key, in the proposed solution it is possible for the user to change the whole open-source system with an other one, as required by the GPLv3 license. As such, there is much more freedom for the user to tinker with its own system.
But for the manufacturer, it has the distinct advantages that some parts of the system can be isolated from the open subsystem, in a much more stable way, both legally and technically, than in a closed-source driver. Thus, it is possible to implement DRM, software subject to type conformance, or safety-critical tasks without risking corruption from the open system, whatever this system does. And contrary to the current solution, this does not require additional hardware.
Because "good for the user" isn't always the same as "good for the company".
Surprise, surprise, companies are in business to make money.
Everyone seems to forget just exactly what the GPL is, and what a License is. It is a restriction that the PROGRAMMER decided to put on the product, not RMS. All RMS does is write the license, there are hundreds of licenses out there. It just happens that programmers liked the GPL because the like the idea that someone else wouldn't make money off of their work. Later on corporations latched onto the same idea. By rolling out a GPL and a closed source version of code they could essentially acheive the equivelent of a very loose non-compete clause. People could learn from their code, and people could repair their code, but any improvements they madethe corporation could gain from, and use it to imnprove the solution that they sold to people who needed it unencumbered by those restrictions. It's perfect, they give us code, and in exchange we give them improvements, but their competitors can't gain from it.
The key is that people use a license because they like the restrictions, or the lack thereof. Companies love the BSD license when we write code in it, but they don't want to release it that way because their competitors can use it too. Companies love to release GPL'd code because the limitations are sufficient to keep down competition, but still make us happy and allow us to fix their crappy software. It's a good deal for all really. The GPLv3 is just a new version of that, it's a few more restrictions. Any programmer could have written that license, the GPLv3 just codofied it into one fairly solid legal document so that we don't have to each screw it up seperately. Think of the open source licenses as libraries, you could do it yourself if you don't like them, but it's generally easier to pick one that matches fairly well with your goals and run with it. That way there are less likely to be bugs. If someone writes a crappy library I don't use it in my code, and that's that. No reason to hate that programmer for all eternity, or have big flamewars over the code, just inform other programmers of what you feel the defficiencies are, hope that they can make an intelligent decision, and let it be.
So, if you want to keep people from making money on your code without having to release their improvements, license GPLv3. If you want to encourage more people to use the code, including a few edge cases where they might make money on it without releasing it, use GPLv2. If you want everyone to be able to use it and you just don't want someone else to claim that they wrote it use BSD. If you really just want it used and don't care at all, release it into the free domain without any license attached. It's your call, do what you want. I want my code to be used, but I also want it to CONTINUE being used. Code is a living thing which changes over time and needs to be modified, otherwise it will die. I feel that to keep my code alive and in use it's important that changes make it back to the public, thus I would choose a GPL license over a BSD license for most software. The important thing here though is that licensing my code this way is my choice. RMS didn't make me do it. Stop blamming the wrong people. If your mad about licensing, be mad at the people who chose the license, not the ones who wrote it.
I'm not intending to flame the parent. It's just a context to bring up this point. More licenses are just more choices, the essense of freedom is choice. Don't complain about having more of it.
Really, your new version of the kernel will have the same privileges as the old version. I see no problem with that.
I only fail to understand why they plan to put a kernel above that hypervisor. For it to be of any use, the hypervisor must controll all I/O operations anyway, what they get from Linux?
Rethinking email
You can't do that. Where would you draw the line?
"This software cannot run on the same CPU as software that implements DRM"
The DRMer will just use a separate coprocessor.
"This software cannot be distributed with software that implements DRM"
Oops. You can't distribute a Windows machine with a GPLed program on it.
"This software cannot communicate with software that implements DRM"
It can't connect to the internet?
You're asking for the legal equivalent of an evil bit.
I may be confused, but isn't this actually a way of complying with the GPL3? Using a hypervisor allows users to upgrade the kernel of their device without running into the (theoretical) security problems that companies who lock down their devices are afraid of.
No, it works just fine as far as anti-tivoization is concerned.
The important thing here is that the GPL3 is a license that dicates terms only about the thing to which is applied. By that I mean, Samba is now under the GPL3, which means you can't tivoize Samba, but that doesn't say anything about whatever else you happen to include in the box.
GPL2: You can take Samba, modify it, release the patches, but make the hardware refuse to load any other version. So for instance if those patches were needed to run on that specific device, you've effectively closed that branch of the source. Sure your patches are there, but since they're for that specific hardware and you control it, it's absolutely useless for everybody else, and goes against the intention of the GPL.
GPL3: Under the GPL3 you MUST make Samba replaceable, VM or not.
You seem to understand the anti-tivoization as that the whole device must be open if GPL3 software is used. This is incorrect. The GPL3 on Samba only applies to Samba, and that's the only thing that must be replaceable. The GPL intends to keep the software which it applies to "free" (according to the FSF's definition). The hardware only needs to cooperate to comply with the license on the specific code it's applied to. Anything else isn't included.
"We" aren't doing this. Some companies are probably eager to do it, and then there are those around here whose major joy is bitching about the GPL, the FSF, RMS and his dog. For them everything that is unsavory to the FSF is a great joy, even if it affects everyone else - even free software developers using other licenses. They generally describe themselves as "open source" advocates but in reality they are the mirror image of the "anti-M$" crowd.
Y'know, you could just choose not to circumvent the licensing problems. You could just use code which you can get under a license that lets you do what you want with it. Or you could *gasp* write your own code! What a concept!
And at the risk of sounding petty, they started it. The root of this problem is not the GPLv3, it's DRM and Tivoization. I run a Linux machine, and I use it to view plenty of media which is either un-DRM'd or easily cracked (DVDs) -- and I require absolutely no VMs to do this.
To be perfectly honest, the legalese does not have to dictate the engineering choice here. You could simply make an engineering choice to use an open platform. No engineer in their right mind would use DRM as an engineering choice -- we all know it doesn't work, doesn't even slow the real pirates down much. If you're forced to implement something like this, realize that it is, in fact, a legal choice that someone made to force DRM on you.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
They want it because the price is unbeatable. It's just that it has an annoying license that they have to work around, in order to be able to sufficiently hamstring their users.
See, that's never made much sense to me. Why don't they just pick up a gratis operating system with a more permissive license, like one of the BSD's, and stop worrying about tivoizing GPL'ed code?
Or are they actually just evil and want to lock down GPL'ed code because it fills their weekly evil quota or something?