DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 23, 2006 10:25 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307)
In reply to: Re: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3 by mingo
Parent article: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

And I have a hacked PlayStation Portable to prove. ;-)
But I had to wait one year 'till I could install any software _I_ wanted
in _my_ PSP. And that is evil... so, it's not DRM that is intrinsically
evil, but TiVo-ization is. The revised GPL3 draft, IMHO, is not anti-DRM,
but only anti-TiVo-ization. I can't believe it doesn't make _any_ kernel
developer really angry to think that if you buy a TiVo and download the
source code to it, you _can't_ hack the source code and install on _your_
TiVo, just because _you_ don't have the cryptographic key to install your
software on your TiVo.
So, in my opinion, the TiVo-ization thing is not a DRM thing, but a way of
closing a loophole in GPLv2; it states that you can't add restrictions to
the license, but the TiVo-ization does just that: adds restrictions to
what the end user can do with the otherwise GPLd software.
HTH,

to post comments

DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 23, 2006 11:34 UTC (Sat) by JakeG (guest, #40696) [Link] (12 responses)

So, do you support people using whatever radio frequency they want including unlicensed ones?

Or are you one of those saying people should be allowed to shoot anyone just because they have a legal gun?

DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 23, 2006 11:46 UTC (Sat) by JakeG (guest, #40696) [Link] (1 responses)

...and you know where that leads? Banning or guns.

Or technologies used to circumvent copyright. Essentially a GPLv3 Linux could be considered a tool that helps break the law, even if it's legal.

By the way, if you want to run your own code on your own hardware, they buy hardware that allows it. Fortunately there is still this so called free market economy we have. So vote with your feet.

vote with more than your feet

Posted Sep 24, 2006 23:51 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Voting with your feet is not enough. Purchasing preference is not the only interaction we have in the free market, there is also participation. The options presented to us in the market are simply not granular enough for us to use preferences as a method of economically controlling the suppliers.

In 1983, when it was not possible to run a computer with only free software, instead of lobbying government or campaigning against proprietary software companies, Stallman participated in the free market by writing software and licensing it in a way that would give recipients some useful freedoms.

Back then, the problem was that software was being distributed as binary blobs. So GPLv2 said that distributing the source was required. Today, a new problem is rigging computers to require keys, so GPLv3 will say that if this is done, distributing a suitable key is required.

DRM and public benefit.

Posted Sep 23, 2006 12:50 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (6 responses)

Hacking your PSP does not harm others; it just makes a device more useful. Sony will tell you that it causes infinite harm to poor games programmers and their families, blah blah, but it is just an inference; it could be that unlicensed distribution boosts sales, as it has happened in some sectors of the music or the computer industries.

On the other hand causing interference to others can directly harm others. There is a distinct public benefit in spectrum regulation, even if it can be abused for private gains. Likewise with weapon regulations. Comparing these things with DRM is fallacious and irresponsible, and a bit sad too.

DRM and public benefit.

Posted Sep 23, 2006 18:32 UTC (Sat) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link] (5 responses)

You are completely free to hack your PSP, if you can figure out how. That's completely separate from whether the manufacturer should be required to make it easy, tell you how, or guarantee that it will keep working if you do.

If you don't like the restrictions in the device, don't buy it.

DRM and public benefit.

Posted Sep 24, 2006 7:03 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (4 responses)

I am not free to hack it, not in USA and not in Europe.

If you don't like the restrictions in the device, don't buy it.

Thanks for your interest. Can I at least complain?

DRM and public benefit.

Posted Sep 25, 2006 9:23 UTC (Mon) by cate (subscriber, #1359) [Link] (1 responses)

????
Copyright law now applies also to hardwares?

You can have license to use software, but you own the hardware.
IANAL, but I think in most countries the "buy" action implies ownership of hardware. (ownership don't implies ownership of "IP" (patents). Software licenses are a special case in copyright laws, but I don't know any special case for hardware devices.

But naturally you should follow the national law, i.e. norm for electric appliances (if you plug the console), radio frequencies (if you emit o receive data) etc. And naturally the new hardware should not be a bomb, or a dangerous item (but considering the newer exploding laptops, this maybe is an outdated norm).

DRM and public benefit.

Posted Sep 25, 2006 10:18 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Please follow the links provided. US Code, title 17, chapter 12, para 1201:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

And similarly (but convolutedly) in the EU law:

there is a need to provide for harmonised legal protection against circumvention of effective technological measures and against provision of devices and products or services to this effect.

So yes, copyright law applies to hardware. DRM is a "technological measure" according to both laws; if DRM is implemented in hardware, e.g. with a TPM, then you should not circumvent it by modifying the hardware.

DRM and public benefit.

Posted Sep 25, 2006 14:24 UTC (Mon) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link] (1 responses)

"I am not free to hack it, not in USA and not in Europe."

Sorry, I had said elsewhere that the right place to fight for a right to hack is in the legal system. I completely agree that DMCA and similar laws should not have been instituted.

However, I would also not support a law that said "Users must be able to modify all devices" or "Users must be able to update the firmware in all devices". That should be a market issue, not a legal issue.

DRM and public benefit.

Posted Sep 25, 2006 21:26 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

However, I would also not support a law that said "Users must be able to modify all devices" or "Users must be able to update the firmware in all devices". That should be a market issue, not a legal issue.

Nobody has asked for such a law. Remember that in this article we were originally talking about how GPLv3 does not allow such things as copyright protection measures. That is not a law; it is a license, and in a sense it is a market issue: if you don't like it, go somewhere else to get your code. So I guess we agree on this point.

DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 23, 2006 23:33 UTC (Sat) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

Tweaking your radio signals could cause actual harm, and the person that did it would be liable for that. That doesn't mean you can't distribute radios just because they can be modified inappropriately. And they all can be.

DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 26, 2006 23:31 UTC (Tue) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link]

That currently affects any open source driver, BSD, GPLv2, or GPLv3. Is the correct solution to have a layer of DRM and only allow drivers signed by the vendor? Obviously not as that prevents any end-user modification, not just restricting the frequency range.

I really have a difficult time thinking of any reasonable uses of DRM.

The fundamental problem occurs when it is applied to GPLed software. DRM, like the DMCA, tries to tack on extra rights for the copyright holder, yet the license is written based on the idea that the user has the right to modify code as much as they want under copyright law. Maybe the GPLv3 changes aren't following the right approach, but this isn't something which can be safely ignored.

DRM _is_ evil

Posted Jan 20, 2007 17:59 UTC (Sat) by ArneBab (guest, #42896) [Link]

I support the police and the law stopping people from shooting other
people or using unlicensed radio frequencies.

But I don't support technology forcing me not to shoot people or not to
use unlicensed radio frequencies, because it is not for the
technology-producer to decide, what I _can_ do with a device.

There might be a day, where I have to use an unlicensed frequency for a
higher cause, for example using my radio-transmitter to contact the police
in an emergency, when there is no phone at hand, and doing so, I take
responsibility for my action and it is only for a court to decide if I did
right or wrong.

If I save three hundred people by illegally shooting the terrorist with my
legal gun, then I might still run into problems because I killed a person,
but a court might well rule it good action and let me get away with a
fine.

Only because a device seems to have only certain good uses, it doesn't
mean there is never a moment where I might have to use a device for
something for which it wasn't originally intended.

And DRM doesn't have an override button.

The only ones who may keep me from acting freely are the police and other
state-employees, whom I gave my vote to serve _me_ that way.
A company never has that right, at least not morally and not in _my
domain_ (my computer).

DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 23, 2006 14:16 UTC (Sat) by mingo (subscriber, #31122) [Link] (5 responses)

DRM is not evil, just useless.

yeah, in many cases that is very much true. But stupidity we should punish with our good judgement and with our feet, not with our "machine gun": the license. Also, it might sound nitpicking, but it is not actually immoral for a hardware maker to be stupid. If a hardware maker excludes itself from the enthusiast market for no good reason, it's their stupidity (and it's their financial loss in the end).

(And we should really let the hardware designers decide. While i have a problem with monopolies doing DRM or DRM being utilized to hide GPL violations, I have no problems with DRM if for example the hardware is a laser toy for children and DRM is used to not allow above-spec voltage to be delivered to the laser diodes.)

DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 23, 2006 19:44 UTC (Sat) by obi (guest, #5784) [Link] (4 responses)

Even though I mostly agree with the kernel devs side (complying with the GPL means a "god-given right to source" not a "god-given right to use it on any hardware") - I'd still take issue with "punishing with our feet".

What if all options or alternatives are equally bad, or the good ones start using DRM and "stupid" techniques because the "bad" ones get away with it. The only option we might be left with is to not use any of the alternatives - and even that might not be an option.

Case in point, we used to have quite a few options when it came to graphic cards. There was Matrox, ATI, 3dfx, and others for which you could get open drivers. These days, if you're looking for a graphic card you have no real alternatives. I need a desktop graphics card to do my job. Which one do I choose to "vote with my feet" or even "punish with my feet" - as you put it?

(By the way, I'm not saying nvidia or ATI are doing anything illegal, because after all, they don't distribute Linux with their drivers, they leave the home user to do the dirty deed - not illegal)

With DRM you might eventually get to a situation where there's no non-drm'ed hardware found any more. In a situation like that, there's little point to Free or Open Source software any more. So yes, GPLv3 is a "political" tool to stop such a situation from happening, but GPLv2 was politics too, and imho Linux clearly had benefit from the fact that GPLv2 was a political tool.

I'm not saying GPLv3 is the answer, or that DRM clauses are the right solution, but I do feel like it deserves more than blanket statements and knee-jerk reactions. From an outsider, it seems like the kernel devs haven't really put a lot of effort in participating in the GPLv3 process (which probably has plenty of flaws, but the process is made by the ones contributing to it)

DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 25, 2006 6:22 UTC (Mon) by mst@mellanox.co.il (guest, #27097) [Link] (1 responses)

> These days, if you're looking for a graphic card you have no real
> alternatives. I need a desktop graphics card to do my job. Which one do I
> choose to "vote with my feet" or even "punish with my feet" - as you put it?

Consider an Intel graphics card. Running quite well on my Lenovo T60,
with 2.6.18 and no binary drivers.

DRM is not evil, just useless.

Posted Sep 26, 2006 22:15 UTC (Tue) by obi (guest, #5784) [Link]

Well, that's great if you have a laptop, you don't care about good performance, and you don't care about the binary-only intel_hal.so that includes things like macrovision.

If you need a PCI-express card, need to drive multiple screens, can't find one of those mini-DVI cards that plug into your embedded motherboard that of course doesn't come with DVI, or need a bit better performance, you're out of luck.

Even though intel graphics are an alternative, for which I'm really happy and that I really am going to support, it's not always (or even most cases) a viable option.

So punishing with my feet is still hard.

graphics cards

Posted Sep 25, 2006 14:59 UTC (Mon) by mingo (subscriber, #31122) [Link] (1 responses)

I need a desktop graphics card to do my job. Which one do I choose to "vote with my feet" or even "punish with my feet" - as you put it?

i'm using ATI cards with free drivers, or Intel cards. Intel has caught up recently and has put their whole 3D stack under the GPL, see: Intel Linux Graphics . ORG.

graphics cards

Posted Sep 26, 2006 22:28 UTC (Tue) by obi (guest, #5784) [Link]

With ATI the best you can do is an X850, which is in theory still supported with the relatively new R300 driver. I've got a number of R200 and R300-class hardware, but when I look around to replace these there's very little options available to me.

Well, maybe I'm a bit impatient - maybe there will be an effort to reverse-engineer the latest generations too.

However, the question was which manufacturer do I reward for being a good open-specs or open-driver citizen. Considering there's an R300 driver in spite of ATI, not thanks to ATI, I find it hard to justify sending cash their way.

ATI, 3dfx, Matrox and others used to be good, now they're not anymore. Intel is the only "good" one (minus a few tiny niggles), and one I'd recommend in a flash provided they have a graphics product that sort of matches your needs, however it often doesn't.

(I refer to my other post on intel graphics here: http://lwn.net/Articles/201235/ )