Posted on 02/03/2006 10:59:01 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux kernel, has fleshed out his unhappiness with GPLv3 in three recent posts on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML).
Torvalds previously stated that the kernel will remain under the licensing terms of GPLv2.
Yesterday, Tovalds offered his opinion as to where the battle over DRM should take place:
I would suggest that anybody who wants to fight DRM practices seriously look at the equivalent angle. If you create interesting content, you can forbid that _content_ to ever be encrypted or limited.
In other words, I personally think that the anti-DRM clause is much more sensible in the context of the Creative Commons licenses, than in software licenses. If you create valuable and useful content that other people want to be able to use (catchy tunes, funny animation, good icons), I would suggest you protect that _content_ by saying that it cannot be used in any content-protection schemes.
Afaik, all the Creative Commons licenses already require that you can't use technological measures to restrict the rights you give with the CC licenses. The "Share Alike" license in particular requires all work based on it to also be shared alike, ie it has the "GPL feel" to it.
If enough interesting content is licensed that way, DRM eventually becomes marginalized. Yes, it takes decades, but that's really no different at all from how the GPL works. The GPL has taken decades, and it hasn't "marginalized" commercial proprietary software yet, but it's gotten to the point where fewer people at least _worry_ about it.
As long as you expect Disney to feed your brain and just sit there on your couch, Disney & co will always be able to control the content you see. DRM is the smallest part of it - the crap we see and hear every day (regardless of any protection) is a much bigger issue.
The GPL already requires source code (ie non-protected content). So the GPL already _does_ have an anti-DRM clause as far as the _software_ is concerned. If you want to fight DRM on non-software fronts, you need to create non-software content, and fight it _there_.
I realize that programmers are bad at content creation. So many programmers feel that they can't fight DRM that way. Tough. Spread the word instead. Don't try to fight DRM the wrong way.
In a later post, Tovalds replied to Pierre Ossman, who suggested the GPL can currently be thwarted by DRM measures:
> The point is not only getting access to the source code, but also being able
> to change it. Being able to freely study the code is only half of the beauty
> of the GPL. The other half, being able to change it, can be very effectively> stopped using DRM.
No it cannot.
Sure, DRM may mean that you can not _install_ or _run_ your changes on somebody else's hardware. But it in no way changes the fact that you got all the source code, and you can make changes (and use their changes) to it. That requirement has always been there, even with plain GPLv2. You have the source.
The difference? The hardware may only run signed kernels. The fact that the hardware is closed is a _hardware_ license issue. Not a software license issue. I'd suggest you take it up with your hardware vendor, and quite possibly just decide to not buy the hardware. Vote with your feet. Join the OpenCores groups. Make your own FPGA's.
And it's important to realize that signed kernels that you can't run in modified form under certain circumstances is not at all a bad idea in many cases.
For example, distributions signing the kernel modules (that are distributed under the GPL) that _they_ have compiled, and having their kernels either refuse to load them entirely (under a "secure policy") or marking the resulting kernel as "Tainted" (under a "less secure" policy) is a GOOD THING.
Notice how the current GPLv3 draft pretty clearly says that Red Hat would have to distribute their private keys so that anybody sign their own versions of the modules they recompile, in order to re-create their own versions of the signed binaries that Red Hat creates. That's INSANE.
Btw, what about signed RPM archives? How well do you think a secure auto-updater would work if it cannot trust digital signatures?
I think a lot of people may find that the GPLv3 "anti-DRM" measures aren't all that wonderful after all.
Because digital signatures and cryptography aren't just "bad DRM". They very much are "good security" too.
Babies and bathwater..
And finally, in yet another response to Ossman and others on the LKML, he wrote:
> So taking open software and closed hardware and combining it into something
> that I cannot modify is ok by you?But you CAN modify the software part of it. You can run it on other hardware.
It boils down to this: we wrote the software. That's the only part _I_ care about, and perhaps (at least to me) more importantly, because it's the only part we created, it's the only part that I feel we have a moral right to control.
I _literally_ feel that we do not - as software developers - have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, trying to force people to bow to our superior God. We are trying to show others that co-operation and openness works better.
That's my standpoint, at least. Always has been. It's the reason I chose the GPL in the first place (and it's the exact same reason that I wrote the original Linux copyright license). I do _software_, and I license _software_.
And I realize that others don't always agree with me. That's fine. You don't have to. But I licensed my project under a license _I_ agreed with, which is the GPLv2. Others who feel differently can license under their own licenses. Including, very much, the GPLv3.
I'm not arguing against the GPLv3.
I'm arguing that the GPLv3 is wrong for _me_, and it's not the license I ever chose.
Quote of the day for over-the-top OSS zealots:
We are not crusaders, trying to force people to bow to our superior God. We are trying to show others that co-operation and openness works better.
This view is why Linus and RMS don't get along.
Cannot music be viewed as a kind of program?
--Boris
Should have known the kooks were going to find a way to derail a good thing.
Hopefully Linus has the weight to get the legions behind him. I imagine most of the commercial distros will agree, but not so sure about Debian.
That's RMS for you. He has a socialist vision that gets in the way of reality.
Hopefully Linus has the weight to get the legions behind him.
I'm sure he does. Unfortunately this might devolve into a pissing contest between RMS and Linus. While RMS will probably use more correct English with less slang, Linus will come out the more cool-headed and practical.
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