Re:Undoing DRM consistent with philosophy of GPLv2
Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on January 30, 2006 08:53 AM
When you look at it in this light, you realize that forbidding the legal enforcement of DRM is in fact consistent with the philosophical aims of the GPLv2, because legal enforcement of DRM is nothing more than a way of restricting a user's freedom to do whatever he wants with the software.
The GPL has never allowed users to do whatever they want with the software, for if they wish to modify and redistribute it they have to agree to a very complicated (read: need attorneys to review) set of terms. It places considerably more restrictions than the BSD/X11 family of licenses for example.
The GPL v2 is already a rather complicated license, however, Linus was pleased with it because it provided him with a nice rights model for a collaboratively developed code base. Now Stallman, the author, intended it as something more grandiose - it was a primary enabling mechanism for his "free software" program and all that entailed. So yes, the new GPL makes sense viewed in that context of Stallman's vision. However, Linus didn't adopt the license to further Stallman's program, or if he did that was only an incidental benefit. So we now have a GPL which is substantially less pragmatic and more idealistic than v2, and moreover the DRM and patent provisions add substantial complexity which is anathema for in-house corporate lawyers who are trained to minimize their companies' exposure to risk (IP attorneys at law firms likely have the opposite reaction - they can smell billable hours on the increase). I doubt that Linux will be the only major project that has issues with the changes.
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
Re:Undoing DRM consistent with philosophy of GPLv2
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on January 30, 2006 08:53 AMThe GPL has never allowed users to do whatever they want with the software, for if they wish to modify and redistribute it they have to agree to a very complicated (read: need attorneys to review) set of terms. It places considerably more restrictions than the BSD/X11 family of licenses for example.
The GPL v2 is already a rather complicated license, however, Linus was pleased with it because it provided him with a nice rights model for a collaboratively developed code base. Now Stallman, the author, intended it as something more grandiose - it was a primary enabling mechanism for his "free software" program and all that entailed. So yes, the new GPL makes sense viewed in that context of Stallman's vision. However, Linus didn't adopt the license to further Stallman's program, or if he did that was only an incidental benefit. So we now have a GPL which is substantially less pragmatic and more idealistic than v2, and moreover the DRM and patent provisions add substantial complexity which is anathema for in-house corporate lawyers who are trained to minimize their companies' exposure to risk (IP attorneys at law firms likely have the opposite reaction - they can smell billable hours on the increase). I doubt that Linux will be the only major project that has issues with the changes.
#