As with many things like this that have come up, the first reaction is widespread panic, vitriol, cynicism, or a combination thereof. But let's all take a deep breath and try to look at this from a more logical perspective.
The two main issues here are: 1) what are the chances of this going through and 2) what does this mean to free OS's like Linux.
The bill introduced will indeed have broad support from such groups as RIAA and MPAA, and that will have some significant impact in Congress. But stop to think for a moment who just might be against it: the computer manufacturers themselves. If this becomes law, this is going to require a phenominal amount of retooling. Hooks would have to be built into every single piece of code that could possibly copy a file or transmit a webpage. And the part in the bill about the industry coming up with a standard? This is the same industry that today has at least four different DVD recording "standards". This is the same industry that has multiple web browsers with HTML unintelligible to all the other browsers.
I can see the inevitable arguments and attempts to pass the buck. The software manufactures will claim it is up to hardware to handle this. The hardware manufacturers will insist it is the responsibility of software. So perhaps this is a place to start. Get the hardware/software vendors on your side rather than talking to congressional folk directly. They would listen more readily to IBM or Sun Microsystems than John Q. Netizen.
Now, assuming the worst, that this law comes to pass, what does it mean to Linux? Well, if the security is implemented in hardware, would this not simply mean Linux will have to have hooks into it? Would it not be like writing just another driver? If it is up to software to implement it, that's a little harder, and would involve a lot of code revision. But it would be possible. So I don't think this law would be the death knell of Linux; it would be in the same boat with everyone else, having to rewrite its code to handle the new law.
Yes, we need to defeat this, and the earlier the better. But we need to approach it calmly and rationally.
I have to agree here, that rather than complaining about Sistina and making legal threats (which most likely would not hold water), just continue the existing codebase as an Open* project.
This has happened before and will continue to happen. A company comes out with the awe-inspiring MegaTool2000. Problem: propriertary. Solution: OpenMegaTool2000.
In other words, the open source community does not get mad, it gets even.
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The two main issues here are: 1) what are the chances of this going through and 2) what does this mean to free OS's like Linux.
The bill introduced will indeed have broad support from such groups as RIAA and MPAA, and that will have some significant impact in Congress. But stop to think for a moment who just might be against it: the computer manufacturers themselves. If this becomes law, this is going to require a phenominal amount of retooling. Hooks would have to be built into every single piece of code that could possibly copy a file or transmit a webpage. And the part in the bill about the industry coming up with a standard? This is the same industry that today has at least four different DVD recording "standards". This is the same industry that has multiple web browsers with HTML unintelligible to all the other browsers.
I can see the inevitable arguments and attempts to pass the buck. The software manufactures will claim it is up to hardware to handle this. The hardware manufacturers will insist it is the responsibility of software. So perhaps this is a place to start. Get the hardware/software vendors on your side rather than talking to congressional folk directly. They would listen more readily to IBM or Sun Microsystems than John Q. Netizen.
Now, assuming the worst, that this law comes to pass, what does it mean to Linux? Well, if the security is implemented in hardware, would this not simply mean Linux will have to have hooks into it? Would it not be like writing just another driver? If it is up to software to implement it, that's a little harder, and would involve a lot of code revision. But it would be possible. So I don't think this law would be the death knell of Linux; it would be in the same boat with everyone else, having to rewrite its code to handle the new law.
Yes, we need to defeat this, and the earlier the better. But we need to approach it calmly and rationally.
I have to agree here, that rather than complaining about Sistina and making legal threats (which most likely would not hold water), just continue the existing codebase as an Open* project. This has happened before and will continue to happen. A company comes out with the awe-inspiring MegaTool2000. Problem: propriertary. Solution: OpenMegaTool2000. In other words, the open source community does not get mad, it gets even.