When organising the 3rd international GPLv3 conference, FSFE got the whole 2 days recorded and have now put the video and audio files online. There are also full transcripts, including the Q and A sessions of Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen.
When organising the 3rd international GPLv3 conference, FSFE got the whole 2 days recorded and have now put the video and audio files online. There are also full transcripts, including the Q and A sessions of Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen.
Q7: With the delicate issue of Digital Restrictions Management, you are saying that DRM is for proprietary software but not for Free Software?
RMS: Not exactly, what I’m saying is that Digital Restrictions Management represents an attempt by certain few to impose their control over everyone else, and that this is wrong, and that because their goal is to control other people, the next thing they do, almost always, is they try to stop users from changing the software. In other words, they try to take away, for practical purposes, freedom number 1. We have decided to defend freedom number 1 – that is, the freedom to change the software so that it does what you want.
We do not forbid the implementation of DRM. That is, GPL version 3 will no forbid people to modify the software so that it fails to do certain things. What we insist on is that whoever does this and distributes the crippled program respect the freedom of other people to add what is missing.
Just another vague answer from Stallman, “We are allowing DRM but with are not allowing it”.
What if the control is not in the software but in the hardware?
GPLv3 is for software and doesn’t applies to the hardware and that’s the path DRM makers will take and it won’t be license to restrict that.
We do not forbid the implementation of DRM. That is, GPL version 3 will no forbid people to modify the software so that it fails to do certain things. What we insist on is that whoever does this and distributes the crippled program respect the freedom of other people to add what is missing.
In other words, don’t sue anybody if someone breaks your DRM encription.
Not atractive to DRM makers.
Edited 2006-07-13 18:56
Not atractive to DRM makers.
And why should it be?
And why should it be?
Because the uninformed seem to think culture will vanish when it isn’t controlled by power hungry, anti-consumer institutions.
The loss of the ability to think for yourself is a terrible thing…
What the GPL3 is trying to avoid are situation where your DRM implementation checks (for example) at the md5 of the binary version of the software, so that, once a user changes the software, it won’t run.
GPL3 is saying: you can implement DRM but must explain and/or give the keys to allow users to change the software with ability to run it “completely” (that is: with drm enabled)
A situation like the first is the Tivo, built with free software with sources available. But if you modify the sources and install them in the Tivo, the Tivo won’t run
“Because the uninformed seem to think culture will vanish when it isn’t controlled by power hungry, anti-consumer institutions.”
You are supposed to argue *for* your point, not against it.