Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 28th Sep 2006 15:36 UTC, submitted by Moulinneuf
Friday Several kernel developers issued a position paper criticizing the GPLv3 drafts. That prompted Software Freedom Law Center chairman Eben Moglen to issue a 'renewed invitation' yesterday to kernel developers to participate in the GPLv3 process. Linus Torvalds responded to Moglen's statement by saying that his position on the license is clear and that he's "fed up" with the FSF.
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Member since:
2006-01-24
mkone wrote:
-"What if Tivo, in their evil genius, decided to split themselves in two, one part making the locked down hardware, and the other making software that runs on the locked down hardware. Would it be illegal for them distribute software that truns on the locked down hardware, by meeting the demand that their software be signed. What if I, a third party, got a license to provide the software. Does the GPLv3 make it illegal to do this using GPLv3 software."
it does if they refuse to give out the key necessary to be able to modify, sign and subsequently run the resulting binary. as a recipient of GPL'ed software you should be able to modify the source code and run a resulting binary. the loophole Tivo is using is that you won't be able to run the resulting binary on the hardware it was supplied with due to restrictive DRM. from a business view this makes sense. from an end-user perspective this is restrictive. GPL was concieved to protect end-user rights, as such it cannot accept restrictive DRM.
mkone wrote:
-"Your cds with Linux for PowerPC cannot run on x86. Is that a technical measure that the GPLv3 would like to ensure that cannot be used to limit your freedoms. So the GPLv3 could make it illegal to run free software on proprietary hardware."
GPL has no restrictions against creating binaries that only run on certain hardware platforms, GIVEN that the end-user is provided the source code necessary to be able to modify and run their own version of that said binary.
naturally, that end-user could also make changes in the source code to make it run on other hardware platforms. and if he distributed such a binary, he would have to provide all necessary code to be able to produce that particular binary to those who wanted it. thus, the circle is closed.