How Nokia and Linux Can Live Together

Bruce Perens writes "Ari Jaaski of Nokia is concerned that the Linux developers need to learn to live with DRM, SIM-locking, and 'IPR'. But they won't. Fortunately, Nokia can do all that it wants with Linux, while being GPL2 and even GPL3-compatible. The key is knowing how to draw bright lines between different parts of the system. That's a legal term, and in this case it means a line between the Free Software and the rest of the system, that is 'bright' in that the two pieces are very well separated, and there is no dispute that one could be a derivative work of the other, or infringes on the other in any way. All of the Free Software goes on one side of that line, and all of the lock-down stuff on the other side." A very interesting read, and a good how-to for any company that is looking to use GPLed code as part of their products, or even just make their products to be hacker-friendly.

Comments

Re:GPL v2 is fucking us over

[redxxx]

Drm is here to stay whether we like it or not. Their whole business model is to lock up and take ownership of other people's phones so they can charge for apps and ringtones. No, their business model is to sell phones. Unfortunately, most phones are sold through phone companies, and that is their business model.

It's like google censoring itself in china. They want the market share, so morality suddenly becomes relative.

Their non-phone products,N8*0s for instance, are a lot more friendly, because they don't have to satisfy the demands of the damn telcos.

Re:He's right.. this is the future

[MtHuurne]

For simlocks and other limitations that are close to the hardware this approach could work. I believe Sony does something like this for PS3 Linux.

For DRM, it will be more tricky: if for example video goes through an open source layer anywhere between decryption and the video RAM, it can be intercepted. But if that entire path is closed, it will not be easy to make it integrate nicely with the open parts of the system.

Some of today's phone have even more limitations, such as forcing the user to download ringtones, wallpapers, songs etc. exclusively from the telco's portal. Or the iPhone SDK license, which forbids VOIP applications from using the telco's data connection. Limitations like this cannot be enforced on any system that deserves the predicate "open". I don't know if that is Nokia's problem or the telco's, but in a market where telcos subsidize phones, they have a lot of influence on the hardware manufacturers.

Re:GPL v2 is fucking us over

[SanityInAnarchy]

No amount of "no DRM in GPL software" limitations is going to help if the people writing the DRM are able to sufficiently separate it such that the GPL license need not apply. If they are able to sufficiently separate it that the GPLv3 software isn't affected, then there's really no problem. GPLv3 isn't about preventing DRM, it's about preventing the use of DRM to close GPL software -- among other loopholes.

The classic example is Tivoisation. Tivo did release all the source for the GPL software they used. But they didn't provide any way of running a different version on your Tivo -- in fact, they went out of their way to prevent that, by signing the binaries.

A surprising example where the GPLv3 can happily coexist with DRM is the Playstation 3. You can install any Linux distro that will compile for it, and you can custom-compile everything. The catch is that it all runs inside a hypervisor (virtual machine), which prevents access to certain hardware. But since you are free to hack up the GPLv3 stuff, recompile it, and run it in exactly the same context as the original, it is GPLv3-compatible.

The misguidedness of DRM in the huge majority of situations is another matter, though. Yes, it is. And it's important that we keep it a separate issue than GPLv3.

Re:wait, what?

[Bruce Perens]

Not a library or plug-in module. It's got to be a separate program.

Re:The Bright Line

[luca]

Hey, Nokia is actually contributing developers and code to various projects, so they're not the kind that just takes without giving back. Maybe you're confusing them with broadcom.

Re:What is a derivative work?

[Bruce Perens]

FSF is trying to get the most possible out of a unilateral-permission-based license rather than a contract-based one. If courts tightened up the definition of a derivative work, FSF might be forced to go to a contract-based license. Certainly that would let them control what is done with the software more than they do now. They would not have to concern themselves about the boundaries of derivative works. And yet they have refrained from taking that step so far, because they don't want to restrict you from doing anything that you would otherwise have the right to do. They feel that would reduce your freedom.

Bruce

Re:DRM and Freedom don't mix.

[fatphil]

You completely misunderstand GPL3. They can distribute any GPL3 programs they like on their device as long as they honour the GPL3. GPL3 does not say "you must not ship this on a device which also contains non-GPL programs".