Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 23, 2006 1:42 UTC (Sat) by sepreece (guest, #19270)
In reply to: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3 by ajross
Parent article: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

"This is the part that I just don't see. Stated as simply as possible, the philosophy behind the GPL says: "You can use this, as long as you share it." This is, to me (and maybe you see the license in a different moral light) a really, painfully obvious candidate for any definition of "essential fairness". I give it to you, so you need to be willing to give it to others. Sounds fair to me, no?"

Device manufacturers (well, many of them) are perfectly happy to share their work with you. But, in some cases they feel they cannot let you modify the actual device. You can still use the technology they developed, even to build a competing device. Many of think that is the essential fairness. The question of whether the device is modifiable should be a market issue, not a license issue.

Note that your argument about an encumbered device "not sharing" apparently doesn't convince the FSF, either, since they say it's perfectly OK to build a non-modifiable (ROM-based) device with free software, and it's hard to see how that would be "sharing" other than by source-code sharing.

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Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 23, 2006 14:45 UTC (Sat) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link] (4 responses)

I think the FSF's position is that the creator of the device shouldn't have any rights regarding the software that they don't also give to the users. In the case of a ROM, neither the manufacturer nor the user can modify the software, so it's still fair. But if, as in the case of Tivo, the software can be modified (and is, to upgrade the DRM) by the manufacturer, then it should also be modifiable by the user.

Sounds fair to me.

Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 23, 2006 18:46 UTC (Sat) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link] (3 responses)

This argument about "can't reserve any rights that you don't pass on" seems to be to be contrived - that is, they have constructed an argument for their position that is not rooted in the four freedoms they claim to be protecting.

Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 25, 2006 9:54 UTC (Mon) by anandsr21 (guest, #28562) [Link] (2 responses)

Which one of the freedom do you claim it violates?

To me it seems that it is inline with the general philosophy that distributors have obligations. The authors any way have all the freedoms, unless they use GPL and become distributors ;-).

Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 25, 2006 14:47 UTC (Mon) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link] (1 responses)

I did not say it "violates" any of the four freedoms, just that it didn't derive from any of them.

That is, in logic, saying "A does not imply B" is not at all the same as saying "B implies not A".

It derives from freedom #1

Posted Sep 26, 2006 2:23 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

The need for the DRM-related words in the licence is derived from freedom #1: "The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs".

If I get the software as part of a hardware+software system, but after modifying the software the hardware transforms into a brick, then I have not been given freedom #1 in a meaningful sense. It's like pulling the trigger and out pops a flag saying "BANG".

In the case of the Tivo, I might want to remove the spyware and add a "copy to my computer" button. Making these modifications and then running my new version of the software on anything but my Tivo will not fulfil my needs.

In the 1990s, to ensure that freedom #1 survived the distribution chain, the GPL had to require people to published the source of any published binaries. In 2006, the GPL also has to require people to give the recipient any codes or passwords that the distributor has made necessary to run modified versions of the software.