Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755141AbXFPT2a (ORCPT ); Sat, 16 Jun 2007 15:28:30 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750869AbXFPT2V (ORCPT ); Sat, 16 Jun 2007 15:28:21 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:50371 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751140AbXFPT2U (ORCPT ); Sat, 16 Jun 2007 15:28:20 -0400 To: Daniel Hazelton Cc: Bron Gondwana , Ingo Molnar , Alan Cox , Linus Torvalds , Greg KH , debian developer , david@lang.hm, Tarkan Erimer , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton Subject: Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3 References: <20070616103130.GD32405@brong.net> <200706161431.58245.dhazelton@enter.net> From: Alexandre Oliva Organization: Red Hat OS Tools Group Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:27:37 -0300 In-Reply-To: <200706161431.58245.dhazelton@enter.net> (Daniel Hazelton's message of "Sat\, 16 Jun 2007 14\:31\:58 -0400") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.990 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1567 Lines: 32 On Jun 16, 2007, Daniel Hazelton wrote: > I don't see how TiVO has done this. They have placed no restrictions on > *modification* at all. What they have done is placed a restriction on > *REPLACEMENT* of the program. Technicality. In order for the software to remain free (which is what the GPL is all about), the user must not be stopped from adapting the software to suit his needs and running it for any purpose. TiVo places restrictions on it. It's really this simple. And then, TiVo doesn't really prohibit replacement. You can replace it as much as you like; just not as conveniently as TiVo can replace it. And then, if you do, it won't run, because it's not signed with a key that they omit from the source code. And they do this in order to prevent the user from changing the behavior of the Free Software that they use, while they keep this ability to themselves. If these are not restrictions on the freedoms that the GPL is designed to protect to ensure that Free Software remains Free for all its users, I don't know what is. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/