Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

This analogy is poor because there are all sorts of legitimate reasons to prevent people to access or alter healthcare data. If I wrote a GPL Electronic Health Record I would not necessarily think that it would automatically be bad for someone to make a device that contained my code but prevented people from modifying the data. In fact I would not want to prevent that use of my code at all.

Secondly the credibility of the central argument of this article is compromised by using Richard Stallman-invented terms such as "Tivoization". It would be far more persuasive if the author argued using real English and argued the question purely on its merits.

For my part, I am far from convinced of the need for a GPLv3, and neither the prosetylising of the FSF nor this article have persuaded me. If anything, they are making it less likely that I will ever adopt the GPLv3 or the "or any later version" clause for any free software I write.

The people who write free and open source software do not subscribe to a single world-view, and the FSF certainly doesn't speak for everyone.