Why choose the lesser of two evils when you can have the best?
Seriously, Google will let you make contributions to projects that matter more to society than their bottom line more than Microsoft will. Of course, You may not give a rat's ass about society.
I don't pay my datacenter for tiny or cheap computers or connections. I pay my datacenter for reliable computers and connections.
As long as centralized datacenters can provide more reliable PCs and connections (You're expecting me to put my entire livelihood behind a WIRELESS connection? Fat chance!) than what I can put on my desk, lap, or hand, there will be a demand for it.
Now, if you can get those drill bits (and their connections) to work as or more reliably than datacenters, you'll have something. But that's a pretty tall order.
That might make some sense if the reason people bought iPods was to get access to music downloads (through iTMS). Unfortunately, most music on iPods aren't iTMS tracks - they're CD rips or downloads (both legit and infringed).
There are reasons the iPod is so popular - but they're in spite of the roadblocks Apple is allegedly compelled to lay in front of consumers, not because of them.
Personally, I tend to believe it's sheerly due to Apple's considerable marketing muscle, both paid and unpaid. That's about it.
"If I get an implant that makes me have a five figure IQ, and I take over the entire economy because nobody else has got it, what are you going to do about it? Do you make it illegal, or do you make it compulsory?"
As in the case of gasoline, there are also middle grounds where you tax the questionable behaviour, and use the proceeds to mitigate the economic effects of those disadvantaged by abstaining.
Um, it's an optional contractual license. You are free (as in you) not to use the software so covered. Yes, even if it's the GPLv3.
There are no threats of imprisonment, forfeiture, unreasonable search & seizure, murder, or burning at the stake if you don't see the glorious light of Stallman and the Church of Emacs and convert to our "moral religion".
Granted, a lot of people are probably now regretting that whole "or any later version" clause, but they, too, had the option of striking it.
If some other entity had come out and released a GPLv3, would all this vitriol have erupted over it? I doubt it. A few would adopt it, and the people who don't like it would just pass over it instead of rabidly accusing it's licensors or authors of "imposing their morality on others".
This doesn't strike me as a charity that's structured for-profit. It strikes me as a for-profit business looking to leverage the PR angle of a charity.
I've heard the ridiculous restrictions placed on non-profits before (what better way is there to effect social change than lobbying government?). I confront the same difficulties when considering that The Burning Man parent organizaiton is an LLC, while the Black Rock Arts Foundation, which pays out thousands for BM art projects, is a non-profit). Which begs the question: if Google.org has the same structure and capabilities as Google.com, then why is it separately incorporated?
The only thing I can think of is PR.
And another thing: The law has enshrined the principle that a company's first loyalty is to its shareholders' profits. It can be SUED if it demonstrably fails this set of priorities. If Google.org's executives, then, are truly putting non-shareholders first, then they do so at considerable legal risk.
Brin does this alot, insisting that we not only learn to do things, but that we learn them the way he did.
Just look at his "revolutionary" Holocene chat program, where he sneers the same way at IRC, impuning the chat protocol of choice for thousands of geeks worldwide - all because HE doesn't like it.
What is wrong with "chat" as we know it today?
What's right about it? The standard chat interface consists of brief, mutually-interrupting text snippets -- often not even finishing a thought or a sentence -- shuffled together like randomized cards in one big, upward-scrolling pile. That's conversation?
One of us (Brin) experimented with exactly the same interface at Caltech, using several teletypes that were distributed around campus, way back in 1972!
("It never occurred to me that such a kludged, dopey interface would still be the standard 30 years later." -- DB)
Look, there's nothing wrong with teens flirting shallowly online. They'll still be able to do that - and strut around with sexy avatars - on any Holocene-agumented world.
But let's recall that this generation is actually writing down more words, by far, than any other that ever lived! Shouldn't some of these people be empowered to write some of those words with more sophistication, interest, realism, passion and creativity, if that happens to be what they want to do?
We plan to end the forced lobotomization of online conversation.
Smell any bias? Last I checked, IRC wasn't primarily a place for "teens flirting shallowly online".
Want a simple, easy, accessible language for doing basic programming? Try//shell//. Lots of people start there. Granted, you're using WINDOWS most likely, but not one peep is made about what's included with the default distribution of the most popular desktop OS; it's about the alleged usability of programming language interpreters one needs to actually download and install. BASH, Perl, and Python all come installed by default on every distribution of every major operating system - except Windows.
No, this all seems to be because he's stuck on the way he learned his first programming skills - and because he's got an old textbook that isn't forwards-compatible with the way beginning programming is taught today. Teaching methods improve over time, too, you know. Personally, I started on gwbasic, and remembered how fast it took me to get frustrated with it because I couldn't edit it in a plaintext format in another editor, being locked into it's binary format. Those are not the days I want to return to, and those definitely aren't the ways I'd want to force my kid to learn programming.
He never really explains why Perl or Python are somehow unsuitable, except to say they don't do things "the same way". It sounds more like they don't do things the same way he did them.
"BASIC was close enough to the algorithm that you could actually follow the reasoning of the machine as it made choices and followed logical pathways."
Why can't you do that in Perl? Even without knowing much about how to use Perl? Beats me. I'm sure if his sacred textbook were using Perl code, it would be no harder to do, and it would no less effective as a teaching tool.
"All that will happen is that eventually, I will not know enough of Windows to troubleshoot their machines anymore."
I can say this happened to me years ago, and I have never regretted it. On numerous occasions, people have come to me, drawling "I hear yer a compyooter gooroo!", only to be turned away after confronting a spyware-infested pustule of a PC I haven't the first clue how to clean up. I'm sure that, even if I did, I saved myself a ton of time pleading ignorance, which I could then put into hanging out with friends & family, reading, or coding something productive. "I don't know how anymore" meets with far more understanding than "I don't have time", even though the latter is the real reason for the former. It's a great situation.
"The nice thing about patents is that they eventually expire, GPL doesn't."
To pick nits:
No, the GPL doesn't expire, but the copyrights in the software do (granted, they last a LOT longer than patents do). Once those copyrights expire, people are no longer bound by the terms of the GPL in order to use, modify and distribute the software, since they can exercise these rights in the public domain.
Take care that you're not falling prey to the Unity Fallacy. It's quite possible this particular poster is consistent in asserting there's no such thing as the OSS community in cases where it's squaring off against proprietarian vendors. Just because such a view is unusual on Slashdot doesn't necessarily mean there's any personal inconsistency in thinking.
Inconsistent views from one person is hypocrisy, but inconsistent views among people is just disagreement.
Windows' goal is to make money for Microsoft. "First mover advantage" and "market leadership" are essential to that goal. In that sense, OF COURSE GNU/Linux/FOSS will be second best in "the market" - because "leadership" in software "markets" is not their goal. To focus on outdated models of product-style economic competition is to completely miss the point of Free Software.
The goal of Free software is, first and foremost, not so much to be free, but to make YOU free; "market leadership" is secondary, if anything. In that sense, Microsoft and Apple will always be second best (if not third, fourth, or farther).
What is up with this "government by committee" vision the curmudgeons have in this thread?
Companies are ALREADY run "by committee". They're called shareholders.
Coops are not companies that insist on bogging down their management processes by consulting every shareholder on every decision any more than businesses-as-usual.
The main point is that the shareholders just happen to be the employees - and they all hold an equal amount of voting stock. That's it. That's all there is to it. Executive decisions are still made daily by executives hired for the purpose; accountable to a board of directors, which is accountable to the shareholders.
You're right, drug R&D is incredibly expensive. Why, if I wanted to develop a new drug today, the patent licensing fees alone would force me into bankruptcy!....wait a minute...
If "first to file" is the standard, and not "first to invent", that might very well mean prior art is **meaningless**.
I'm still looking for the bill - there was one in 2005, as well. Any links to the current bill would be appreciated, as out glorious mainstream news outlets can't seem to be bothered to provide one.
Why do you think that the same people are guilty of this hypocrisy? I would imagine that some gamers like the old stuff, while others prefer new stuff.
It takes a special kind of dedication to think that just because two mutually exclusive conclusions have been reached in the wild, everyone must think exactly the same way.
I realize the industry is consolidating into a greedy enterprise that demands maximum profit through appealing to the largest possible market, but sometimes the market doesn't all want the same thing. Get over yourself, and try specializing.
The benefits you cite for muscular companies "promoting" GNU/Linux systems is a little bit dubious.
The success of Windows is measured by it's marketshare; by it's revenue. The problem with applying this model to GNU/Linux is that it accepts for granted this industrial framing. In so doing, it misses the entire point.
FOS software's success, in order to measured properly, has to be measured in terms that match the motivation for its creation: liberty. FOS is created with the interests of the user in mind. Non-free software is created with the interests of the vendor foremost.
So Adobe's marketing muscle may well bring a bevy of new users. That may well get more developers to develop for the platform. But if the users aren't contributors, and the developers aren't either, why should *I* care?
As a FOS user and developer I want useful software, and liberty. The popularity of my platform is secondary, and I care about that only insofar as it serves the primary end. Popularity does make contributions in that direction, but not nearly so much, or so directly, as it does to the commercial goals held by closed vendors.
Now, the desire to pay the bills and make some money certainly prompts us to compromise, and that's perfectly understandable. We get a paycheck, and our employers get to revoke our liberty on the code we write. Fine. What I don't understand is why people like this expect the "open source community" to port their apps **for free**, removing the paycheck from the equation.
We don't write software for//vendors// out of the goodness of our hearts. We do it for//users//. Any closed source vendor who thinks that a FOS geek should fall all over himself to port a closed app to GNU/Linux sheerly because it would be THAT GOOD for that platform is fooling himself. In terms of popularity, sure, maybe a killer app would make GNU/Linux more *popuplar*, and "sell" more copies. But in terms of contributing to useful software liberty, the net effect is ZERO. As GNU/Linux's popularity grows, sheer popularity becomes less useful, and thus, a much less tantalizing carrot to wave in front of the community. Eventually, it's closed vendors that need to grow up.
GNU/Linux has pretty much long left the point where it desperately needs users and marketing. Now, it exists pretty much permanently, remaining afloat mostly by competing on features. And the most important feature is not a feature of the code, but of the license.
Why the hell is it people are so obsessed with the idea that even the most unfortunate of us//deserve// to subject ourselves to the service of those wealthier than we are? Coerced labor is not dignified by a choice of masters. -- I don't think America can turn around. In the Ukraine, election fraud inspires mass protests. In Mexico, the same. But In the US, Gore and Kerry meekly submit. Almost like that's what they were supposed to do. No protests. No demands for recounts. No occupying government facilities.
The rest of the world will have to carry the torch until this Empire can finally collapse under the weight of it's own corruption and calcification.
I'm thinking there are some major technological changes coming - probably in the form of recursive fabrication tech (precursors of nanofactories). These things will allow common consumers to ween themselves off of consumerist industry while empowering them with the means to at least spotlight corruption and resist it with the same technologies as advanced military and plice forces (look at Hezbollah's UAV "cruise missiles", only made with rapid prototyping machines that multiply like rabbits).
But, I'm getting ahead of us, obviously.
What to do? Some say get out the vote, but that assumes your vote counts. I say get out, THEN vote.
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.
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//that you own//.
Then again, the FSF is specifically geared toward protecting the freedoms of//users//, not of "owners". The concept of device ownership doesn't appear in their mission statement, while users do. Perhaps it shouldn't!
Slashdot Mirror
Go for Microsoft.
Why choose the lesser of two evils when you can have the best?
Seriously, Google will let you make contributions to projects that matter more to society than their bottom line more than Microsoft will. Of course, You may not give a rat's ass about society.
I don't pay my datacenter for tiny or cheap computers or connections.
I pay my datacenter for reliable computers and connections.
As long as centralized datacenters can provide more reliable PCs and connections (You're expecting me to put my entire livelihood behind a WIRELESS connection? Fat chance!) than what I can put on my desk, lap, or hand, there will be a demand for it.
Now, if you can get those drill bits (and their connections) to work as or more reliably than datacenters, you'll have something. But that's a pretty tall order.
That might make some sense if the reason people bought iPods was to get access to music downloads (through iTMS). Unfortunately, most music on iPods aren't iTMS tracks - they're CD rips or downloads (both legit and infringed).
There are reasons the iPod is so popular - but they're in spite of the roadblocks Apple is allegedly compelled to lay in front of consumers, not because of them.
Personally, I tend to believe it's sheerly due to Apple's considerable marketing muscle, both paid and unpaid. That's about it.
"If I get an implant that makes me have a five figure IQ, and I take over the entire economy because nobody else has got it, what are you going to do about it? Do you make it illegal, or do you make it compulsory?"
As in the case of gasoline, there are also middle grounds where you tax the questionable behaviour, and use the proceeds to mitigate the economic effects of those disadvantaged by abstaining.
"Impose your morality on others"
Um, it's an optional contractual license. You are free (as in you) not to use the software so covered. Yes, even if it's the GPLv3.
There are no threats of imprisonment, forfeiture, unreasonable search & seizure, murder, or burning at the stake if you don't see the glorious light of Stallman and the Church of Emacs and convert to our "moral religion".
Granted, a lot of people are probably now regretting that whole "or any later version" clause, but they, too, had the option of striking it.
If some other entity had come out and released a GPLv3, would all this vitriol have erupted over it? I doubt it. A few would adopt it, and the people who don't like it would just pass over it instead of rabidly accusing it's licensors or authors of "imposing their morality on others".
Get a grip, will ya?
This doesn't strike me as a charity that's structured for-profit. It strikes me as a for-profit business looking to leverage the PR angle of a charity.
I've heard the ridiculous restrictions placed on non-profits before (what better way is there to effect social change than lobbying government?). I confront the same difficulties when considering that The Burning Man parent organizaiton is an LLC, while the Black Rock Arts Foundation, which pays out thousands for BM art projects, is a non-profit). Which begs the question: if Google.org has the same structure and capabilities as Google.com, then why is it separately incorporated?
The only thing I can think of is PR.
And another thing: The law has enshrined the principle that a company's first loyalty is to its shareholders' profits. It can be SUED if it demonstrably fails this set of priorities. If Google.org's executives, then, are truly putting non-shareholders first, then they do so at considerable legal risk.
Just look at his "revolutionary" Holocene chat program, where he sneers the same way at IRC, impuning the chat protocol of choice for thousands of geeks worldwide - all because HE doesn't like it.
From the Holocene Chat FAQ:
Smell any bias? Last I checked, IRC wasn't primarily a place for "teens flirting shallowly online".
Want a simple, easy, accessible language for doing basic programming? Try
No, this all seems to be because he's stuck on the way he learned his first programming skills - and because he's got an old textbook that isn't forwards-compatible with the way beginning programming is taught today. Teaching methods improve over time, too, you know. Personally, I started on gwbasic, and remembered how fast it took me to get frustrated with it because I couldn't edit it in a plaintext format in another editor, being locked into it's binary format. Those are not the days I want to return to, and those definitely aren't the ways I'd want to force my kid to learn programming.
He never really explains why Perl or Python are somehow unsuitable, except to say they don't do things "the same way". It sounds more like they don't do things the same way he did them.
"BASIC was close enough to the algorithm that you could actually follow the reasoning of the machine as it made choices and followed logical pathways."
Why can't you do that in Perl? Even without knowing much about how to use Perl? Beats me. I'm sure if his sacred textbook were using Perl code, it would be no harder to do, and it would no less effective as a teaching tool.
Outages are not the main reason to distrust web service providers.
Privacy is.
And that is the reason I don't use them as much as possible.
Of course WoW is more than just a game.
It's also (and possibly most importantly) a BIG BUSINESS.
"All that will happen is that eventually, I will not know enough of Windows to troubleshoot their machines anymore."
I can say this happened to me years ago, and I have never regretted it. On numerous occasions, people have come to me, drawling "I hear yer a compyooter gooroo!", only to be turned away after confronting a spyware-infested pustule of a PC I haven't the first clue how to clean up. I'm sure that, even if I did, I saved myself a ton of time pleading ignorance, which I could then put into hanging out with friends & family, reading, or coding something productive. "I don't know how anymore" meets with far more understanding than "I don't have time", even though the latter is the real reason for the former. It's a great situation.
Then again, maintenance IS where the money is...
"The nice thing about patents is that they eventually expire, GPL doesn't."
To pick nits:
No, the GPL doesn't expire, but the copyrights in the software do (granted, they last a LOT longer than patents do). Once those copyrights expire, people are no longer bound by the terms of the GPL in order to use, modify and distribute the software, since they can exercise these rights in the public domain.
Your point is still valid, though.
Take care that you're not falling prey to the
Unity Fallacy. It's quite possible this particular poster is consistent in asserting there's no such thing as the OSS community in cases where it's squaring off against proprietarian vendors. Just because such a view is unusual on Slashdot doesn't necessarily mean there's any personal inconsistency in thinking.
Inconsistent views from one person is hypocrisy, but inconsistent views among people is just disagreement.
Classic.
Windows' goal is to make money for Microsoft. "First mover advantage" and "market leadership" are essential to that goal. In that sense, OF COURSE GNU/Linux/FOSS will be second best in "the market" - because "leadership" in software "markets" is not their goal. To focus on outdated models of product-style economic competition is to completely miss the point of Free Software.
The goal of Free software is, first and foremost, not so much to be free, but to make YOU free; "market leadership" is secondary, if anything. In that sense, Microsoft and Apple will always be second best (if not third, fourth, or farther).
What is up with this "government by committee" vision the curmudgeons have in this thread?
Companies are ALREADY run "by committee". They're called shareholders.
Coops are not companies that insist on bogging down their management processes by consulting every shareholder on every decision any more than businesses-as-usual.
The main point is that the shareholders just happen to be the employees - and they all hold an equal amount of voting stock. That's it. That's all there is to it. Executive decisions are still made daily by executives hired for the purpose; accountable to a board of directors, which is accountable to the shareholders.
"You can read the press release or check out the project's web page when it recovers from traffic."
//before// it was posted to Slashdot?
Wait, so you mean it was slashdotted
Slashdot must be sliding into irrelevance...
That's right: SLASHDOT IS DYING...
" So are these the fledgling footsteps of an emerging AI?"
No. It's probably far, far more useful.
I did. That's the only reason I saw yours in the first place. Why?
Can you cite your source for this? I don't see this "undisclosed" criteria in the bill, although I can't be sure it's not in the existing patent laws.
Thanks
This is Senate Resolution 3818, for those interested in actually reading the bill. For some reason, TFA fails to disclose this.
The Fire of Genius claims to have a copy in pdf.
You're right, drug R&D is incredibly expensive. Why, if I wanted to develop a new drug today, the patent licensing fees alone would force me into bankruptcy! ....wait a minute...
If "first to file" is the standard, and not "first to invent", that might very well mean prior art is **meaningless**.
I'm still looking for the bill - there was one in 2005, as well. Any links to the current bill would be appreciated, as out glorious mainstream news outlets can't seem to be bothered to provide one.
http://n8o.r30.net/dokuwiki/doku.php/unityfallacy
Why do you think that the same people are guilty of this hypocrisy? I would imagine that some gamers like the old stuff, while others prefer new stuff.
It takes a special kind of dedication to think that just because two mutually exclusive conclusions have been reached in the wild, everyone must think exactly the same way.
I realize the industry is consolidating into a greedy enterprise that demands maximum profit through appealing to the largest possible market, but sometimes the market doesn't all want the same thing. Get over yourself, and try specializing.
The benefits you cite for muscular companies "promoting" GNU/Linux systems is a little bit dubious.
//vendors// out of the goodness of our hearts. We do it for //users//. Any closed source vendor who thinks that a FOS geek should fall all over himself to port a closed app to GNU/Linux sheerly because it would be THAT GOOD for that platform is fooling himself. In terms of popularity, sure, maybe a killer app would make GNU/Linux more *popuplar*, and "sell" more copies. But in terms of contributing to useful software liberty, the net effect is ZERO. As GNU/Linux's popularity grows, sheer popularity becomes less useful, and thus, a much less tantalizing carrot to wave in front of the community. Eventually, it's closed vendors that need to grow up.
The success of Windows is measured by it's marketshare; by it's revenue. The problem with applying this model to GNU/Linux is that it accepts for granted this industrial framing. In so doing, it misses the entire point.
FOS software's success, in order to measured properly, has to be measured in terms that match the motivation for its creation: liberty. FOS is created with the interests of the user in mind. Non-free software is created with the interests of the vendor foremost.
So Adobe's marketing muscle may well bring a bevy of new users. That may well get more developers to develop for the platform. But if the users aren't contributors, and the developers aren't either, why should *I* care?
As a FOS user and developer I want useful software, and liberty. The popularity of my platform is secondary, and I care about that only insofar as it serves the primary end. Popularity does make contributions in that direction, but not nearly so much, or so directly, as it does to the commercial goals held by closed vendors.
Now, the desire to pay the bills and make some money certainly prompts us to compromise, and that's perfectly understandable. We get a paycheck, and our employers get to revoke our liberty on the code we write. Fine. What I don't understand is why people like this expect the "open source community" to port their apps **for free**, removing the paycheck from the equation.
We don't write software for
GNU/Linux has pretty much long left the point where it desperately needs users and marketing. Now, it exists pretty much permanently, remaining afloat mostly by competing on features. And the most important feature is not a feature of the code, but of the license.
Why the hell is it people are so obsessed with the idea that even the most unfortunate of us //deserve// to subject ourselves to the service of those wealthier than we are? Coerced labor is not dignified by a choice of masters.
--
I don't think America can turn around. In the Ukraine, election fraud inspires mass protests. In Mexico, the same. But In the US, Gore and Kerry meekly submit. Almost like that's what they were supposed to do. No protests. No demands for recounts. No occupying government facilities.
The rest of the world will have to carry the torch until this Empire can finally collapse under the weight of it's own corruption and calcification.
I'm thinking there are some major technological changes coming - probably in the form of recursive fabrication tech (precursors of nanofactories). These things will allow common consumers to ween themselves off of consumerist industry while empowering them with the means to at least spotlight corruption and resist it with the same technologies as advanced military and plice forces (look at Hezbollah's UAV "cruise missiles", only made with rapid prototyping machines that multiply like rabbits).
But, I'm getting ahead of us, obviously.
What to do? Some say get out the vote, but that assumes your vote counts. I say get out, THEN vote.
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.