Licence text and fabs [LWN.net]

Licence text and fabs

Posted Oct 5, 2006 9:12 UTC (Thu) by mingo (subscriber, #31122)
In reply to: Licence text and fabs by nim-nim
Parent article: Busy busy busybox

Sensing some fundamental disagreement that causes us to argue circularly i have read back some of your other replies in other threads and I think your core argument in favor of DRM is in one of your sentences:

  GPLv2+DRM happens to enable corporations to do the BSD on GPL code they    
  wanted all along.

Does that fairly summarize your points around DRM up in essence?

If yes then i contest your suggestion above. (i thought i did that before, but hey)

GPLv2+DRM still gives us the source code. BSD doesnt. Tivo gives us their source code for the DRM-ed kernel they utilize. So where does the GPLv2+DRM combination create the "BSD on GPL code" situation in the Tivo case? I'd really like to understand your logic here.

I'd agree with you that if GPLv2+DRM would be equivalent to the BSD then that would not be acceptable to me and i'd find little joy in hacking the kernel. (when i started developing Linux years ago i made a conscious choice against BSD, mostly due to their license)

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Licence text and fabs

Posted Oct 5, 2006 11:16 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

> So where does the GPLv2+DRM combination create the "BSD on GPL code"
> situation in the Tivo case

Very easily, you only need to make DRMed PCs the cheap norm and open PCs the expensive exception.

for every-market-without-GPLv3-software ; do
{
// Get MS/Hollywood money and help
release (spec-mandating-DRM-on-next-hardware-gen);

// Making exceptions costs money and the majors don't like hairies
apply (DRM-on-GPLv2-software);

// Need some GPLv2 devs with access to DRMed hardware
// Or the FLOSS ecosystem will collapse brutaly, regulators notice
// and floss users not buy the new hardware generation
hire (some-gplv2-devs-to-do-life-support);

// This only takes a few years with modern lifecycles
wait (DRM-hardware-is-the-norm);

// This takes a tad longuer, as hairies will hoard previous gen hardware
// However without hardware access they're bound to disappear and find
// a cheaper hobby
wait (floss-hobbyists-have-disappeared);

// Without hobbyists there are less floss devs on the job market
// All the new software contributions come from competitors
// May as well make a consortium and work together
// Denying entry to new would-be competitors
replace (GPLv2-software,consortium-software);

note (floss-in-market-nonexistent);
}

This is the usual BSD pattern of hire key community people, stop contributing downstream, redeploy once the community is anemic