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Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

[Posted June 29, 2012 by n8willis]

Mike Linksvayer shares his reflections on the importance of the GPLv3, which was released five years ago today. "I suggest that number (add qualifiers of and scaling by importance, quality, etc, as you wish) of works under GPLv3 or use of GPLv3 relative to other licenses are less important markers of GPLv3′s success, and that of the broader FLOSS community, than the number and preponderance of works under GPLv3-compatible terms."
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Success measured by goals

Posted Jun 29, 2012 13:20 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (7 responses)

Surely the measure of the GPL3's success is how well it has achieved its stated goal of protecting the freedom of computer users who use a particular program, and by extension the FSF's broader goal of freedom for computer users generally. On that measurement the record is mixed. The new licence doesn't seem to have helped at all against what we used to call 'Tivoization' - locked-down hardware on which you cannot install your own programs or make changes to those installed. In most cases where the new licence might have made a difference (for better or worse), most free software authors have chosen not to adopt it. There isn't a critical mass of GPL3-only software which might make hardware vendors think twice about shipping locked-down hardware and so excluding the use of GPL3 code on it.

Success measured by goals

Posted Jun 29, 2012 13:34 UTC (Fri) by xnox (subscriber, #63320) [Link] (2 responses)

One notable piece of software is GRUB2. Due to GPLv3, it is questionable whether it is legal to use GRUB2 for implementing UEFI Secure Boot without disclosing private key used for signing.

Success measured by goals

Posted Jun 29, 2012 15:46 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

I was commenting on this very issue in another article. I think this meme is due to some confusing language the FSF has put into their FAQ on GPLv3. The reality is that the end user has to be able to install their own modified software so a machine with GRUB2 can't be boot locked using UEFI Secure Boot or any other mechanism, but as long as you can disable the checking or add your own keys, even if the procedure is a pain, you are in the clear. If you ship a boot locked GRUB2 system then you don't actually have a proper copyright license to distribute it and there are many options for remedy, refund/replacement, firmware update, etc. before one would be backed into a corner where disclosing private key materials were the only way to compliance.

Success measured by goals

Posted Jun 29, 2012 17:45 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

If I understand correctly, it would not be legal to ship a binary of GRUB2 with a machine that does not allow the user to install his/her own signing keys, because the user then cannot replace it with a new version (unless an appropriate private key is provided to the user).

But it seems to me that if a laptop shipped with GRUB2 comes with a document telling the user how to install a private key on that laptop, and how to sign new binaries with that key, then GPL3 is fully complied with.

Success measured by goals

Posted Jun 30, 2012 23:58 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (3 responses)

There isn't a critical mass of GPL3-only software which might make hardware vendors think twice about shipping locked-down hardware and so excluding the use of GPL3 code on it.
Indeed, tivoization is alive and well: the GPLv3 has not driven down the number of locked down devices. However locked down devices don't contain any GPLv3 code, which might count as a minor success for the license. As to whether it has raised awareness of the issue, I think this has been a mixed bag. The masses remain unwashed and buying locked down phones, then rooting them like crazy.

Success measured by goals

Posted Jul 1, 2012 1:58 UTC (Sun) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (2 responses)

A lot of the phone manufacturers provide unlock mechanisms these days, for example:

http://htcdev.com/bootloader/
http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/05/30/#20110530-h...

Success measured by goals

Posted Jul 1, 2012 20:51 UTC (Sun) by spaetz (guest, #32870) [Link] (1 responses)

a lot? right... I just tried to unlock my old htc dream. All the htcdec site says is "needs an hboot update" without me telling whatsover what this means or how I'd go about doing it. Unlocked? the minority of a minority...

Success measured by goals

Posted Jul 13, 2012 20:02 UTC (Fri) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

Yeah, I guess it depends how you measure it. I was measuring that in terms of the number of manufacturers rather than the number of different device models.

GPLv3 *compatible* terms

Posted Jun 29, 2012 14:04 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (21 responses)

Is a very BAD metric imho.

How many other licences are GPLv3 but not GPLv2 compatible? And how widely are those licences used?

Yes I know there's been considerable effort expended towards a "GPL and other licences ecosystem" but v2 has benefited too. I think v3 has benefited primarily because it's difficult to retrofit compatibility changes, you need to move forward.

There's a lot of popular licences that are v2 compatible and just happen to be v3 compatible too.

Cheers,
Wol

GPLv3 *compatible* terms

Posted Jun 29, 2012 15:27 UTC (Fri) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (20 responses)

I switched my toybox project from GPLv2 to BSD last year because I think splitting the copyleft pool into multiple incompatible factions has rendered it useless. Everybody mocked Sun's CDDL but when the FSF shipped a new copyleft license the Linux kernel would never use, that was somehow different?

And yes, real projects are hurt by this. Look at qemu: it wants to copy driver code from the linux kernel and platform definition code from binutils/gdb, and it _can't_ because they're under incompatible licenses. Their newer stuff (like the tcg subsystem) is BSD licensed.

This guy is claiming that driving me _off_ the GPL entirely is somehow strengthening the GPL.

What is it with the FSF and Star Wars quotes? GPLv3 was introduced with "I am altering the bargain, pray I don't alter it any further", and the current status is "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine".

GPLv3 *compatible* terms

Posted Jun 29, 2012 16:26 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

Everybody mocked Sun's CDDL but when the FSF shipped a new copyleft license the Linux kernel would never use, that was somehow different?
Well, yes. Kernels don't share much code with non-kernelspace projects whether or not the license is compatible. Code sharing in either direction between the Linux kernel and other GPLv2-only projects (nearly all of which are in userspace) is minimal.

There are significant projects out there which are not the Linux kernel. Some have shifted license. Some have not. The world does not appear to have ended, nor even slowed in its rotation.

GPLv3 *compatible* terms

Posted Jun 29, 2012 17:13 UTC (Fri) by dark (guest, #8483) [Link] (1 responses)

Sadly, the world did slow in its rotation. It now completes a revolution 85 μs slower than in the summer of 2007. Whether this was entirely due to the GPLv3 is of course unclear.

GPLv3 *compatible* terms

Posted Jun 29, 2012 19:11 UTC (Fri) by bryan (guest, #64696) [Link]

And yet they have to insert another leap second on June 30 2012.

You can ignore the difference, but it's kind of obvious

Posted Jun 29, 2012 18:33 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (16 responses)

Everybody mocked Sun's CDDL but when the FSF shipped a new copyleft license the Linux kernel would never use, that was somehow different?

Well, sure. Kernel developers had no way to anticipate CDDL and thus no way to make their stuff compatible with it. They had a way to anticipate GPLv3: the GPLv2 itself talks at length about "revised and/or new versions of the General Public License" and explains how to support newer versions. It also explains that stuff released under "GPLv2 or later" will always be available under GPLv2 no matter what - but that new FSF's stuff can only be released under GPLv3. And it was not even a theory back then: FSF already did one such switch (from GPLv1 to GPLv2). IOW: the kernel developers made conscious decision to make kernel incompatible with binutils/gdb/etc - it's not as if they were not warned.

GPLv3 was introduced with "I am altering the bargain, pray I don't alter it any further"

Well, you may not like it, but why then you've adopted the GPLv2 in first place? GPLv2 was introduced in the exact same manner, after all.

You can ignore the difference, but it's kind of obvious

Posted Jun 30, 2012 11:42 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (15 responses)

Well, you may not like it, but why then you've adopted the GPLv2 in first place? GPLv2 was introduced in the exact same manner, after all.

The difference is that the change from v1 to v2 (I wasn't around at the time) was widely perceived as fixing bugs in v1. I'll freely admit v2 is buggy, and needed fixing, but v3 is perceived as introducing NEW things, not fixing old bugs.

One quick example of a bug in v2 - if you put source and binary next to each other on your website as SEPARATE downloads, you trigger the "make source available for three years" clause. This *feels* wrong, and the FSF say it wasn't the intention, but that's what the black letter of the licence says.

Cheers,
Wol

You can ignore the difference, but it's kind of obvious

Posted Jun 30, 2012 22:50 UTC (Sat) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (14 responses)

v3 is perceived as introducing NEW things, not fixing old bugs

Let us ignore the perceptions and focus on what it actually did, then, because it certainly did tidy up a lot of the ambiguity in GPLv2.

Going beyond the fixes, the "controversy" appears to originate from the fact that version 3 of the GPL was written in a way that prohibits vendors from simultaneously shipping GPL-licensed software to end-users while denying them the right to modify that code and run the result on the same hardware, and from holding patent threats over the heads of end-users in order to deny them the right to redistribute the code in question. That these technical and legal licensing evasion tactics were addressed in a revision of the licence shouldn't really be much of a surprise to most observers familiar with what the FSF is about.

I suppose some people get upset about such matters because they believe that getting their code into blockbuster products and not upsetting "risk-averse" corporate stakeholders is more important than what the end-user gets to do with their code, but one can't honestly expect the FSF to uphold those priorities.

You can ignore the difference, but it's kind of obvious

Posted Jun 30, 2012 23:43 UTC (Sat) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (13 responses)

Hey, nice to talk to you again.

I agree with your assessment. I think though that in their PR the FSF has promulgated some myths about the GPLv3 that they think are important for keeping hardware open. I don't think anyone wants to end up in a dystopia where all hardware is boot locked to only Apple, MS or Google. The confusion in many recent articles about the compatbility between GPLv3 and boot time signature checking and some of the bad FAQs on this issue show the results of their PR, intentional or not.

You can ignore the difference, but it's kind of obvious

Posted Jul 1, 2012 0:39 UTC (Sun) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (12 responses)

The thing is, when you're dealing with legal matters, the "perception" among judges and legal scholars IS the "reality."

For example, most parts of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (also known as "Obamacare") were recently perceived as constitutional by the Supreme Court. So the law is now on a much firmer footing than it was a month ago, even though the law itself didn't change. The perception did.

In the same way, all it takes is a few judges who DO believe that the GPLv3 prohibits boot time signature checking to make that the reality. I am not a lawyer, but the license as written does seem to me like it could be interpreted that way.

I really believe that people who use complex and poorly understood licenses are doing themselves a disservice. Political activism through licenses just doesn't make sense.

The worst part of the whole situation is that most of the licenses, software and otherwise, that we are forced to agree to on a daily basis are not written by open source hackers, but rather by companies like Apple, Microsoft, and so forth. Apple has already set terms for their app store which forbid GPL'ed programs. It wouldn't be a big surprise if any Microsoft app store had the same kind of terms. We should *all* be hoping that complex and EULA-like licenses are ruled unenforceable, not contributing to the problem.

You can ignore the difference, but it's kind of obvious

Posted Jul 1, 2012 16:09 UTC (Sun) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] (11 responses)

"Political activism through licensing doesn't make sense".

Well, the GPL always was political activism through licensing. Always, from GPLv1 on. And the GPLv3 fixes the bugs in GPLv2, which were so many that it required a complete rewrite. That some dumbasses like Linus Torvalds are thick and slow, and take ages to "get it" doesn't mean they are right. The GPL is political, it always was, it always will be. Get over it, if you don't want to be political, release under BSDL.

You can ignore the difference, but it's kind of obvious

Posted Jul 2, 2012 5:46 UTC (Mon) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (10 responses)

There's no need for name-calling. We're all reasonable people here.

I think you know full well that using a license doesn't require that you agree with the political beliefs of the person who drafted the license. If it did, we would all have to write our own licenses, because consensus is hard to come by in politics.

As for the rest of the issues, Linus and some other people have discussed them all here: http://lwn.net/Articles/200422/

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 4, 2012 13:21 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (9 responses)

If consensus was so hard to reach in politics, we would all be creating our own political parties. Even worse, we would all be living as hermits. In fact, politics is all about reaching consensus.

Licenses can only require that people agree to the trade-offs expressed in them. For example, when Apple released WebKit under the GPL they agreed (grudgingly) to the political beliefs behind it, or at least convened that the benefits outweighed the cons. But WebKit was based on KHTML which left little margin to Apple.

In the case of releasing new software, choosing a license requires at least that you agree with its explicit goals. You may think that the GPLv2 preamble is not political, but I would disagree: it is highly political, and also it is easy to agree with it. Of course nobody has to agree with Stallman on everything and like the same things just because they use the GPL. But it would be foolish to release new software under the GPL unless you agree that "people should be able to share, study and use software freely".

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 4, 2012 13:34 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

WebKit is LGPL.

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 8, 2012 11:00 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

Sorry for that. Anyway, the LGPL has the same political background as the GPL (in fact LGPLv3 is GPLv3 with a few additions); I think the argument with respect to Apple stands.

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 5, 2012 13:49 UTC (Thu) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

If software's direct contribution to one's business is as a cost centre (e.g. because what you sell is widgets, not packaged software), then releasing one's software under the GPL may make sense for entirely pragmatic/selfish reasons whether one thinks Richard Stallman's politics pertaining to software to be despicable and wrongheaded, or noble and correct.

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 7, 2012 23:21 UTC (Sat) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (5 responses)

I'm pretty sure that Apple doesn't agree with the political beliefs of Richard Stallman, even grudgingly. You can't even distribute a GPL'ed application on the Apple App Store.

WebKit was not created by Apple, and is LGPL, not GPL. Apple came up with its own open source license, the APSL, which it uses for certain things. It is not GPL compatible.

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 8, 2012 11:06 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (4 responses)

In fact WebKit was created by Apple; based on KHTML, but it is a different project. The LGPL (sorry about that) embeds the same political beliefs as the GPL; it was also created by Stallman, so the argument doesn't change.

Apple agreed with Stallman's beliefs to the extent that they thought that using WebKit (and releasing source code under the LGPL, therefore helping their direct competitors) was better than developing their own rendering engine from scratch, which they surely could have done. Politics makes strange bedfellows, as they say.

Apple doesn't believe that the trade-off holds for everything, and Apple takes advantage of everything that they can; we might think that they are cynical, but I don't see how we might be surprised.

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 8, 2012 12:01 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

> Apple agreed with Stallman's beliefs to the extent that they thought that using WebKit ([...]) was better than developing their own rendering engine from scratch, which they surely could have done.

The problem is that Apple did not (at the time) have the resources to deal with Yet Another HTML Rendering Engine. Trident, Gecko, Presto and KHTML/WebKit were the most used ones at the time for testing by webdevs, Trident and Presto are closed-sourced and Gecko was at the time MPLd -- so LGPLd KHTML was the natural choice for them (IIRC they tried to buy Opera at the time in order to acquire Presto, but my memory can be playing tricks with me, and a quick google only brings "facebook wants to buy opera" stories)...

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 10, 2012 6:18 UTC (Tue) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (2 responses)

Just repeating over and over that "Apple agreed with Stallman's beliefs" doesn't make it true. Did you read Stallman's obituary for Steve Jobs?

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 11, 2012 13:06 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (1 responses)

It looks like you've misquoted "...agreed to the extent that..." into just "agreed" when the whole point of man_ls was about the "extent".

I am afraid this is damaging the credibility of everything else you wrote (which looked interesting)

> Did you read Stallman's obituary for Steve Jobs?

This is getting worse... "X agrees with Y" does not imply "Y agrees with X".

Politics is consensus

Posted Jul 11, 2012 17:41 UTC (Wed) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

I would characterize Apple as an occasional supporter of Open Source and an opponent of Free Software.

I feel that the way that man_ls phrased things was confusing (but of course, you may disagree.)

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 29, 2012 22:16 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link] (41 responses)

IMHO "tivoization" (which is perhaps now more associated with Apple) would be better resolved by laws directly forbidding it.

It seems to be a straightforward case of highly uncompetitive behavior that should be regulated by anti-trust laws, and might well be in violation of existing laws in some cases.

It's also really easy to fix it legally, because you can just say that copyright, patent, DMCA anti-circumvention and perhaps trademark protection will be automatically no longer be granted to those who release locked down hardware, and there's no need for actual penalties or enforcement.

Even better, it should be extended to a blanket ban of all product tying, in the sense that if anything substantial can be a replaceable component, then it must be and the same interface documentation that internal engineers used must be published.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 29, 2012 22:51 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (40 responses)

Wow. I am not sure I agree with this. I am pretty sure it so much broader and so political that it has nothing to do with the GPL anymore. A key motivator for people who created the GPLv3 was tivoization... *of GPL software*. AFAIK changing consumer rights in respect of ANY hardware/software product has never been on the FSF's agenda.

Please define "substantial"; where does it stop? Should the automobile industry open all their internal documents and disable keys too so any one can easily customize their car at will? Even reprogramming their engine or brake system?

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 8:22 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (26 responses)

> Please define "substantial"; where does it stop? Should the automobile industry open all their internal documents and disable keys too so any one can easily customize their car at will? Even reprogramming their engine or brake system?

Simple answer, yes they should. It would save consumers a lot of money paying people to reverse engineer the systems to sell you replacements that are not locked down.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 9:57 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (25 responses)

Fair point, but I personally much rather prefer to have a single company to sue and better chances if my brakes fail. BTW I have a different logic for a phone - less likely to injure me.

A free market should be able to provide both open and locked down products to satisfy us both. If a market is too monopolistic/dysfunctional, then there is a much bigger problem to solve anyway.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 10:42 UTC (Sat) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

Just because something _can_ be modified doesn't mean that it _must_ be modified.

For something like a car, you would ideally have a reset button that can reset all parameters back to stock.

there's no reason why you need to have separate products for people who want to modify it and people who want it stock.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 11:25 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> Just because something _can_ be modified doesn't mean that it _must_ be modified

No! Really?

> there's no reason why you need to have separate products for people who want to modify it and people who want it stock.

I gave one reason above. Unfortunately you seemed to have missed it.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 10:50 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (22 responses)

> I have a different logic for a phone - less likely to injure me.

Up until the moment your pwned phone is used to download some kiddie pr0n and you end up in a sex offender registry, you mean?

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 11:45 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (21 responses)

If my stock, locked down phone is pwned then I'll be only one among millions of others. So far we've never seen any registry of sex offenders accepting ten of thousands of new entries overnight.

There is a life outside LWN where average people genuinely want to buy turn key, blackbox *products* without any intention of doing any kind of hacking/DIY work on it. If it's locked down then even better because they cannot even be accused of having messed with the device and broken the warranty. Reality check: have a look at the billions of owners of a "jailed" iPhone. How's that for a happy lock down?

If you think a minority of open-source hackers is going to change people's minds and change laws (!) to FORCE the rest of world to switch and do business their "open" way, then you must be on something really strong. Something an order of magnitude stronger than the authors of the GPLv3.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 13:39 UTC (Sat) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link] (1 responses)

I think lock-down hurts everyone, regardless of wanting to do hacking/DIY work.

For instance, in Apple's case, the only way to get applications is through the Apple app store where Apple takes a 30% cut, due to the antifeatures built into iOS.

Obviously, if it were possible for others to set up competing stores, the fees would probably go down to 5-10% at most (or even zero, with ads on web pages), resulting in up to around 20% price reduction on the apps.

And also, if Apple doesn't like some app that you want (e.g. because it displays porn, or competes with some service of theirs), too bad, you won't get it.

How is it good to allow such blatantly anti-competitive practices, for instance?

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 2, 2012 14:05 UTC (Mon) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link]

You are speaking about what is clearly an economic success story, and implying how terrible it is for all users. Sure, it could cost *less* for end users who are funding it, but do you hear them complaining? Last time I looked, typical app prices are few dollars. Is this really the sort of investment that stymies people? "I could afford the app if only it cost $1.50 instead of $1.99!"

What is even more amazing is how happy people are about it, including the developers. App developers get significant sums of money because in this business, the food chain is pretty short. There's the app developer, Apple, user, and the payment processor. Sure it may look like Apple takes a disproportionate cut at 30 %, but in the other businesses like charity money raising, music industry, etc. the middle-men are much fatter in comparison, reportedly taking the lion's share of the profit in many cases. Modern digital distribution systems are in fact incredibly efficient relative to them.

Sure, bring on Android and/or multiple App stores and let's push the middlemen to 2-3 % or so. Something like that probably approaches "fair". Almost everything should go to the people who create, and not to the managers. That's what I believe, anyway.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 13:47 UTC (Sat) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link] (18 responses)

Oh, and I strongly doubt that most people buy iPhones because they are locked down.

They buy them for other features and for the brand, and consider the lock-down as an acceptable downside, or perhaps don't even know about it.

Then, they either don't know about jailbreaking, or prefer to not do it due to the downsides, which are all pain Apple intentionally inflicts to their customer, like intentionally breaking their phones with firmware updates.

If the iPhone weren't locked down, a lot of them would probably be even happier with their purchase, obviously.

Also, I guess a lot people might prefer iPhone's hardware and would like to run Android on iPhone, but they can't, because that's not available due to Apple's anti-competitive practice of withholding iPhone's specifications and locking down the bootloader with cryptography.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 14:19 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (7 responses)

> They buy them for other features and for the brand, and consider the lock-down as an acceptable downside,

This is was probably true for some customers a couple of years ago when the iPhone was so much in advance of the competition. Now there is decent alternatives and choice. It's not all rosy yet but we are getting there.

Please let a free market offer everything from locked down products to DIY kits and let the customers decide, thanks.

Of course the market has to be actually free and not encumbered with things like ridiculous software patents, in which case we have a much bigger problem any way.

> If the iPhone weren't locked down, a lot of them would probably be even happier with their purchase, obviously.

If the iPhones weren't locked down, people could mess with them exactly like they do (accidentally or not) with their DIY, virus-ridden and bloated Windows PCs. While a large majority of people seem happy with their locked down iPhones, I've seen extremely few non-technical people happy with their Windows PC.

You cannot have your cake and eat it.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 20:17 UTC (Sat) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link] (2 responses)

"Please let a free market offer everything from locked down products to DIY kits and let the customers decide, thanks."

Who says the phone market is free? AFAICS, the phone market consists of what the carriers allow, and the carriers don't have much interest in user freedom.

"If the iPhones weren't locked down, people could mess with them exactly like they do (accidentally or not) with their DIY, virus-ridden and bloated Windows PCs."

This is assertion completely devoid of evidence. Aside from the fact that most PCs are not DIY in any meaningful way, unless you count occasionally installing commercial software in a manner not too different from going to an app store.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 23:25 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

It's not clear to me how you can post in a discussion about lock-down while missing the difference between the iPhone and Windows...

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 11, 2012 11:29 UTC (Wed) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

Who says the phone market is free? AFAICS, the phone market consists of what the carriers allow, and the carriers don't have much interest in user freedom.
Isn't that mostly a US problem? Not really sure how things work in other countries (e.g. in Asia), but AFAIK the only legal reason for a carrier in the EU to forbid a certain phone model is if it doesn't follow the legal requirements (frequency use, transmission power, radiation, etc.) or doesn't follow the gsm (and related) standards in a way that harms the network.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 1, 2012 5:14 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

That's a terrible analogy. Most Mac users are happy and they aren't locked down.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 1, 2012 16:27 UTC (Sun) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] (1 responses)

A market with locked-down devices is not free. In a free market, the right of a vendor over his device ends when he sells it. This is called "first-sale doctrine", you can sell it once, but then can not use your IP rights to prevent people from doing with the sold good whatever they like (excluding making copies, which is a privilege that contradicts free market theory, as well).

So actually, jailbreaking an iPhone is fully legal. Turning this around means that jailing the iPhone itself is denying customers rights they already have, and therefore is - if not downright illegal - at least obviously evil. There are always places where evil behavior is not sanctioned by law.

The fact that slide-to-unlock patents have been granted, and that this is a much worse issue than the locked down iPhone does not make the first thing something that should be legal. If someone raped your wife and then killed her, the killing does not make the raping legal, either. In many legal systems, it just makes no difference in the punishment.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 2, 2012 12:53 UTC (Mon) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> A market with locked-down devices is not free.

While the freedom to use devices in any way you want is nice, it is not part of any usual definition of "free market".

> So actually, jailbreaking an iPhone is fully legal.

Yes.

While vendors should be free to (try to) prevent unintended uses, customers should also be free to proceed anyway at their own risk. Or - even better - free to buy less restricted products; if they care.

> Turning this around means that jailing the iPhone itself is denying customers rights they already have,

That's a serious twist of logic. The right to do whatever you want certainly does not imply the product has to actually work any way you want.

> and therefore is - if not downright illegal - at least obviously evil.

Fighting evil in the market place - what a noble cause.

"Virus-ridden and bloated Windows PCs"

Posted Jul 2, 2012 14:30 UTC (Mon) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link]

Sturgeon's law applies, I think. The user experience is defined by the quality of the vision that goes into it, and the quality of engineering resources assigned to implementing it. Whatever Apple's products' other faults are, IMHO they are nice to use in myriad of small and large ways which may be impossible to guarantee unless you have total control of everything.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 15:54 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (9 responses)

> Also, I guess a lot people might prefer iPhone's hardware and would like to run Android on iPhone,

"A lot"? Seriously?

The other way round, I bet there are more people who would like to get the iOS experience on a cheaper phone with a different form factor (locked down or not).

> but they can't, because that's not available due to Apple's anti-competitive practice of withholding iPhone's specifications and locking down the bootloader with cryptography.

Indeed, the iPhone and iPad products are anything but open. They are turn-key, complete, top to bottom, glitch-free black boxes where the very last thing they want is you even having a look inside. You are not even supposed to know that there is any software in it!

These products are so disgustingly locked down that customers fight to pay an insane price for it, even when they could perfectly do with a more open and slightly inferior product, or even none at all.

This locked down product model is so successful that it has become Apple's main business model. So successful that Apple is neglecting its Personal Computer product range. Forbidding it would annihilate Apple's value. Good luck to you trying to prove it's anti-competitive - I am not worried for Apple. I can hear the Apple fanatics threatening your family already!

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 21:16 UTC (Sat) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link] (5 responses)

Again, it seems very unlikely that the fact that iPhones are locked down are the cause of their success.

I mean, why would anyone want a locked down product?

It seems to me that people are either not aware of it or its consequences, or simply decide that the good features make the openness sacrifice a worthwhile tradeoff.

As for anti-competitiveness, well, it's anti-competitive by definition, since you can't compete in the iPhone OS markets, nor in the iPhone application delivery market, nor in the iOS hardware market...

I mean, Microsoft was convicted for just SHIPPING Internet Explorer with Windows, despite the fact that you could use another browser pretty much just fine.

In this case, not only Apple ships an OS and an app delivery service with the iPhone, but they also prevent any competing OS or app delivery service from being used, and they prevent any other hardware from being used with iOS.

I guess the only thing that saves them from antitrust law is that US law apparently only applies to companies who have almost 100% market share.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 23:56 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (4 responses)

Sure the lock down is not the selling point in itself. But it's very much part of the service/experience.

Apple's selling point is "trust us to take care of everything - as long as no one but us is in control". The lock down is a necessary and well understood requirement for the glitch-free service; a service good enough that people are willing to pay a lot for. Quite a relief after decades of PC "freedom" and the very poor resulting experience.

> I mean, Microsoft was convicted for just SHIPPING Internet Explorer with Windows, despite the fact that you could use another browser pretty much just fine.

I think this is a major simplification. Microsoft has been convicted because it was/is a monopoly and trying to EXTEND this monopoly. While it is for many people and businesses extremely difficult to avoid Windows, practically no one needs to use an iPhone.

> I guess the only thing that saves them from antitrust law is that US law apparently only applies to companies who have almost 100% market share.

Since it was basically first on the smartphone market the iPhone obviously had a huge market share. After just a few years it's already under 50%. Granted, the iPhone still holds 100% of the... "iPhone market" :-D

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 1, 2012 7:18 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (3 responses)

Apple's selling point is "trust us to take care of everything - as long as no one but us is in control".

The fact that there are millions of jailbroken iPhones out there shows that a lot of people like something else about iPhone, sorry.

And you can easily sell locked iPhone and be GPLv3 compliant: see the Chromebooks with their infamous "developer" switch.

Since it was basically first on the smartphone market the iPhone obviously had a huge market share.

iPhone never had more then 25% no matter how you'll define the market (unless you'll define it as "market for iOS-driven devices"). Even finger-driven touchphones were simultaneously presented by Apple and HTC!

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 1, 2012 7:27 UTC (Sun) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

if you define "smartphone" as "iOS, Android or similar, but not blackberry", then Apple had the only "smartphone" on the market for a while, so by definition they had a huge market share.

it takes a little creativity in defining "smartphone" to do this, but many people feel justified in doing so. It also requires defining what Apple did as something revolutionary that only they could have thought of, rather than something that everyone in the industry was working on, they just managed to get their out the door and into popular perception faster.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 1, 2012 18:06 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

if you define "smartphone" as "iOS, Android or similar, but not blackberry", then Apple had the only "smartphone" on the market for a while, so by definition they had a huge market share.

Even if you define it this way it never had "almost 100% market share". In fact Apple was never a dominant player in smartphone market. Most profitable - yes, most overhyped - sure, dominant - nope. iPhone and HTC Touch were released simultaneously and were sold in comparable quantities at first. Both were touchscreen phones without stylus, both built the interface around sweeping, etc.

Sure, HTC Touch included stylus because only built-in programs were finger-oriented, but iPhone had no support for third-party applications for a year after release (thus it was not even qualified to be called "smartphone" back then).

Later yes, Microsoft dropped the ball and it was caught by Google, but Apple always had a viable rival, it never had "almost 100% market share".

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 1, 2012 9:40 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> The fact that there are millions of jailbroken iPhones out there shows that a lot of people like something else about iPhone, sorry.

Yes, but it's apparently just a few percents.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 1, 2012 0:10 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (2 responses)

> Indeed, the iPhone and iPad products are anything but open. They are turn-key, complete, top to bottom, glitch-free black boxes where the very last thing they want is you even having a look inside. You are not even supposed to know that there is any software in it!

I am posting this from the supermarket line, from my iPad, and I laughed out so loud everyone is staring at me right now.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 1, 2012 1:08 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (1 responses)

I thought (after I got home) I should elaborate a little further.
You see, these days I make a very nice chunk of my income giving technical support and advice about mobile equipments. I dispense such support and advice to our state legislators and their closest advisors and assistants. It's a quite diverse public, culturally speaking. Some of the people I give assistance do not have the eight grade, but some are medical doctors, or have engineering degrees. Everyone knows it's software, I can assure you that. Nobody thinks it's *perfect* software. Many have difficulties doing stuff -- and many of those difficulties on iOS devices have to do with Apple's lockdown. Funny story: down here at the State Assembly this public(*) has a split like 70% iOS devices to 30% Android (and other, S60 and Windows being the memorable ones) devices -- but iOS devices get almost 100% of the support calls. And they get exactly 100% of the "how do I do <simple stuff but made impossible by Apple(**)>?" calls.

And that's why your (SJRDF still working strong, huh?) depiction of iOS devices as "turn-key, complete, top to bottom, glitch-free black boxes" would've made my drink come out my nose if I was drinking at the time.

(*) Almost every one of each 77 state representatives have an iPad and an iPhone; approximately 1/2 of their closest advisors have iPhones, some have iPads, and the rest have Android phones, S60/Windows phones, or "feature" phones.

(**) or at least "we have to purchase a not-very-expensive but really obscure app to do THAT".

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 2, 2012 18:03 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> And they get exactly 100% of the "how do I do <simple stuff but made impossible by Apple(**)>?" calls.

After using an iPhone yesterday to try to get directions (my Nexus was refusing to connect to either 3G or 4G) and getting a destination that was wrong, I could not find out how to say "no, try again". The single button did nothing useful (for this problem) and the UI had nothing that even resembled "cancel". I completely understand why Apple wanted to replace Google Maps; it's pretty useless compared to the Android version (granted, there's probably some common iOS UI pattern that I missed, but it's not discoverable at all!).

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 20:21 UTC (Sat) by Kluge (subscriber, #2881) [Link] (12 responses)

"Should the automobile industry open all their internal documents and disable keys too so any one can easily customize their car at will? Even reprogramming their engine or brake system?"

Some people do reprogram their engines, in a sense. Google "chip modding" for more info. I don't think this is true of brakes. Of course, there are also legal issues associated with modifying vehicles which will be operated on public streets.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 11, 2012 11:51 UTC (Wed) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link] (11 responses)

I suppose being able to easily switch the stock engine/injection firmware for a more "economic" and/or more "green" one would certainly be quite appreciated by some people (currently the aftermarket "chip tuning" market is entirely focussing on the opposite unfortunately, probably because those people usually spend more money on their car...).

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 11, 2012 12:48 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (10 responses)

I personally would appreciate an "economic" firmware update only if it has been signed for my locked down engine. Yes I am ready to pay a price premium for that. The very last thing I want is an "open-source" car for myself.
My opinions on [i]phones could be completely different.

I am not worried; I don't think there is any chance that open-source extremist lobbies are going to forbid locked down cars any time soon.

In fact, I'm not even sure I want open-source cars to be allowed on the same roads I'm using... Yes I know modding is happening already. I hope it's never going to become easy.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 11, 2012 13:01 UTC (Wed) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link]

> In fact, I'm not even sure I want open-source cars to be allowed on the same roads I'm using... Yes I know modding is happening already. I hope it's never going to become easy.

There is indeed a difference between things that live in a computer and things that live outside a computer.

Open source, release early release often, concurrent implementations, unregulated spaces are (demonstrably) good practices for things that live in a computer. Things that lives outside a computer and that can kill or harm people have and should have different constraints. You cannot kill a person with your computer, you can with your gun.

What is interesting now is to see that the boundaries between inside and outside a computer are becoming blurred. Drones, MRIs, self-driving cars: all things that live and affect both the insides of a computer and its surroundings. How will our _software freedoms_ reflect on our _physical freedoms_? Will we come to discriminate software based on the machine it is in? So that the same piece of code will be legal when run on a CPU that is housed in a so-called phone yet illegal when run on the same CPU but in a car? Will the free software licenses reflect this difference in their wordings?

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 11, 2012 18:57 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (8 responses)

> I am not worried; I don't think there is any chance that open-source extremist lobbies are going to forbid locked down cars any time soon.

Actually laws were passed several years ago forbidding the car companies from locking down their cars.

There was a trend in the 80's and early 90's for car manufacturers to try and make it so that you could only get replacement parts from them (eliminating the 'aftermarket') This got bad enough that congress passed laws requiring that they allow aftermarket parts (and only deny warranty claims if they can prove that the aftermarket part caused the failure). Congress also required that the manufacturers standardize the interface to the on-board computers, and allow third parties to interface with them (this is the ODB-II interface)

"Open Source Cars" have been on the road forever, so if you are afraid of them stay away from the roads.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 11, 2012 21:40 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (guest, #74652) [Link]

"Open Source Cars" have been on the road forever, so if you are afraid of them stay away from the roads.

And open source is used in many mission critical and medical systems, I suggest staying away from hospitals too.

There are many other regulations that make software suitable for life and death situations, open source is different from open governance. BTW, I personally do not like to see a BSOD in the highway.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 11, 2012 22:15 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (6 responses)

> congress passed laws

The United Nations congress I suppose?

> requiring that they allow aftermarket parts

Do these laws mean anyone can go and manufacture parts in any way they want? If yes then they the pendulum just swung too far back. Defective parts should be removed from the market before accidents happen - not after.

(Moreover firmware is not exactly like any other part. Defective firmware tends to be much more common than defective screws)

> and allow third parties to interface with them

"interface with" does not sound like "reprogram". Or did your laws include that too?

> "Open Source Cars"

I really meant "not locked down cars" here, sorry for the confusion. Open-source and lock down are quite different things, unlike what the GPLv3 activists want us to believe (with apparently some success on my subconscious already... damn)

> ... have been on the road forever, so if you are afraid of them stay away from the roads.

I am doing my best already. Letting practically anyone go and drive something as dangerous as a vehicle on an open road is a crazy idea which has killed, harmed and disabled millions of people already in practically every family - and still counting. Car modding is just a thin, new layer of icing on the road death cake. Just a few extra, statistically insignificant casualties.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 11, 2012 22:32 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)

>> congress passed laws

> The United Nations congress I suppose?

no, the US congress, which given the buying power of the US public has prevented every car manufacturer in the world that ever has a hope of selling to the US public from producing cars that are locked down.

> Do these laws mean anyone can go and manufacture parts in any way they want? If yes then they the pendulum just swung too far back. Defective parts should be removed from the market before accidents happen - not after.

It depends on the parts. Some parts have rigorous testing they go through, others don't. Headlights and tires require much more testing than air filters for example. If you see the phrase "DOT approved" in relation to an item, that means that it's a part that's regulated and tested. There are actually far fewer of this sort of part than you would think.

The fear of lawsuits (and getting a reputation for selling junk, which would put you out of business) does most of the work of preventing defective parts overall.

> "interface with" does not sound like "reprogram". Or did your laws include that too?

Yes, the ODB-II interface on cars requires standards for at least some ability to reprogram the car. It's far short of being a complete replacement, but you are allowed to reprogram many parameters of your car that will let you push it into parts of the performance envelope that will damage it.

> I really meant "not locked down cars" here, sorry for the confusion.

so did I. The cars aren't opensource, but they are far easier to modify and tweak than the manufacturers wanted them to be.

> Car modding is just a thin, new layer of icing on the road death cake. Just a few extra, statistically insignificant casualties.

Car modding is hardly new. Car modding has been around as long as the car has. Before that there was buggy modding, before that there was saddle modding.

the thing that's new is the idea that you would take a device and only use it in the way the manufacturer wants and expects you to.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 12, 2012 9:20 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (4 responses)

> no, the US congress, which given the buying power of the US public has prevented every car manufacturer in the world that ever has a hope of selling to the US public from producing cars that are locked down.

Note: It's very cheap to lock down *software* in some countries and not in others. I guess much cheaper than moving the steering wheel from left to right for instance.

> The fear of lawsuits (and getting a reputation for selling junk, which would put you out of business) does most of the work of preventing defective parts overall.

This still leaves the market open to dodgy imports and short lived retailers which do not care about reputation. Of course most buyers would not buy safety-critical car parts there, but I personally do not find "most" good enough in term of road safety.

> Yes, the ODB-II interface on cars requires standards for at least some ability to reprogram the car.

In summary, US law forbids locked down cars but not locked down phones? The only option that does not follow any logic.

I guess too much logic in law would put the traditional lawyers' rip-off at risk...

> the thing that's new is the idea that you would take a device and only use it in the way the manufacturer wants and expects you to.

The other thing that is new is software. It's new in a number of disruptive ways: free to "manufacture" (copy), hard to get right, hard to test and usually impossible to prove right. Oh, and it's also easier to lock down.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 12, 2012 20:47 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (3 responses)

> In summary, US law forbids locked down cars but not locked down phones? The only option that does not follow any logic.

Yes.

This happened because the car manufacturers tried to lock down the cars and force everyone to buy replacement parts only from them.

this affected enough people that complained that laws were passed to prevent such lock-downs.

The same cycle will need to happen for phones and computers.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 13, 2012 23:16 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (2 responses)

> > In summary, US law forbids locked down cars but not locked down phones? The only option that does not follow any logic.

Just realized some logic can actually be found. Wear and tear requires spare parts for cars - not that much for phones.

> > The other thing that is new is software. It's new in a number of disruptive ways...

+ no wear and tear for software (bugs from day one!)

> The same cycle will need to happen for phones and computers.

You wish.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 13, 2012 23:28 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

> Just realized some logic can actually be found. Wear and tear requires spare parts for cars - not that much for phones.

except that the law was not just about replacement parts, it was also about modifications (theoretically upgrades)

how common is it to hear the open source software vs closed software debate being compared to buying a car with the hood welded shut.

It's exactly this 'hood effectively welded shut' situation that the laws were passed to block

>> The same cycle will need to happen for phones and computers.

> You wish.

we are already seeing signs of rebellion with people getting devices that the vendor won't upgrade to the latest version. Then there is the entire "jailbreaking" or "modding" movement from people who are not part of the opensource community. Let this grow a bit and I do fully expect that there will end up being laws passed saying that once a person has fully paid for a device they have the explicit right to modify the software on that device.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jul 15, 2012 9:15 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> Let this grow a bit

Growing much bigger than jailbreaking is competition from products with "soft" or no lock-down ("soft" just to make sure you don't void the guarantee by accident)

> and I do fully expect that there will end up being laws passed saying that once a person has fully paid for a device they have the explicit right to modify the software on that device.

(you meant: modify and run the software on that device)

Considering the US reform pace about software patents - a legal joke of gigantic proportions actually annihilating the mere concept of a free market - I'm pretty sure we'll be long dead before any legal change happens related to software lock-down.

Linksvayer: 5 years of GPLv3

Posted Jun 30, 2012 5:15 UTC (Sat) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link]

This is straight out of a Despair.com motivational poster parody.

"Increasing success by lowering expectations!"


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