Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1761557AbXFQXlS (ORCPT ); Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:41:18 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1759171AbXFQXlI (ORCPT ); Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:41:08 -0400 Received: from mail.suse.de ([195.135.220.2]:33723 "EHLO mx1.suse.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754973AbXFQXlH (ORCPT ); Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:41:07 -0400 Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 01:40:14 +0200 From: Andrea Arcangeli To: Alexandre Oliva Cc: Linus Torvalds , Al Viro , Bernd Schmidt , Alan Cox , Ingo Molnar , Daniel Hazelton , 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 Message-ID: <20070617234014.GA4542@v2.random> References: <20070615101007.0cbfd078@the-village.bc.nu> <4673CA7C.5040207@t-online.de> <20070616181902.GB21478@ftp.linux.org.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 4833 Lines: 88 On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 04:46:44PM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote: > My perception is that the first easily dominates the second, and so > you are better off without tivoization. Your perception is quite flawed. I see where you come from, I know your intentions are absolutely genuine, but there's not a chance that by changing the GPL in any way you want, you can move the needle on companies whose only real long term threat is so broad and fundamental as the very existence of the Internet! Stay away from any DRM issue since that is not a licensing problem, and is a problem that is up to the economy to solve, all we have to do is to write good code and grow the userbase, those discussions are a total waste of time, and infact they're in the interest of the pro-DRM people. See apple removal of drm mandated by market forces (sure not mandated by the threat of GPLv3 ;). Then (besides tivo that as said at the top is not a problem at all regardless if it's legal or not with gplv2) there's the myth of trusted computing apocalypse that promises an unbreakable DRM and no computer capable of running a modified linux anymore, which cannot materialize. At every respectable linux user group there's somebody giving that TC speech. The thing, if I'm wrong and it really happens, it means something went so fundamentally wrong that the symptom will be a totally minor problem compared to the real cause that triggered it. If nothing else wait the scenario to remotely materialize before declaring preventive war to something purely theoretical, and _then_ release a v4 addressing it. If all conspiracy theories should be added to v3 as potential threat, then I would recommend to as well add a clause that if you're an alien that wants to use some GPLv3 code in your alien-technology-driven ship built to destroy planet earth, you can't unless you provide us with a copy of your ship open specifications showing how to upload our improved GPLv3 software to it, so we have a chance to build one too to defend ourself LOL. Doesn't that sound fair enough too? I mean just in case ;) Back to the tivoization issue, the crypto key is the least of the problems, the major linux cellphone vendor ships binary only modules and I wouldn't even know how to upgrade the kernel regardless of any crypto signature and even ignoring the binary only modules. If selling the locked embedded package allows new market segments to grow around linux (even if that's not _yet_ an ideal hacker-hackable cellphone) that's still a net-positive because it sends a message to the venture capital that may exploit the fact they're closed to grow market share (see openmoko, not a "perception" of mine). Open source licenses shouldn't forbid usages, not even the blatantly unethical ones, "evil" is not tangible (I guess everything would be easier in life if it was). Let's tackle on the only real _tangible_ problem of gplv2 known todate, that they can address with a few liner fix to gplv2. They should _only_ do that, and release quickly a strightforward v3 that nobody could ever pretend to argue about (they should have done that already, more than half an year passed already and most of the time at least here has been spent on purely theoretical things). They still can do the right thing. All this arguing, busybox forking, are all signals that something is wrong, it should start to ring a bell. Frankly I think we all love the FSF and the GPL and we want to help to avoid mistakes (I know I do). I'm totally in favor to __experiment__ with the DRM clause but do that on a new license. Leave GPL as it has always been, it works just great, fix the only single tangible issue known todate, the rest is all about conspiracy theories and at definining evil. Perfect fairness cannot be obtained in this world, no matter what license or system you apply. Those developers that have been so totally trustful and used "any later version" deserve better treatment (they deserve a quick fix too) and you should obey to the promise of only modification in detail according to point 9 or the "any later version" will not be enforceable because outlawing a single usage means going the opposite route of "promoting the reuse of the software" (written in gplv2, search for it). This whole email is irrelevant with the fact tivo may or may not be legal with gplv2 depending on different countries. The single attempt of trying to reduce the gpl userbase with new restriction, doesn't qualify as a modification in detail here. For the record, I said the first time quite anonymously in my blog back in Oct 06. - 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/