Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1765537AbXFRTpQ (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:45:16 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1763256AbXFRTo5 (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:44:57 -0400 Received: from www.osadl.org ([213.239.205.134]:38364 "EHLO mail.tglx.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1763046AbXFRTo4 convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:44:56 -0400 From: =?utf-8?q?Hans-J=C3=BCrgen_Koch?= Organization: Linutronix To: Alexandre Oliva Subject: Re: mea culpa on the meaning of Tivoization Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:44:06 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 Cc: Alan Cox , Ingo Molnar , Daniel Hazelton , Linus Torvalds , Greg KH , debian developer , david@lang.hm, Tarkan Erimer , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , Chris Friesen , Bernd Schmidt , Robin Getz , Rob Landley , Bron Gondwana , Al Viro References: <200706180922.26630.hjk@linutronix.de> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200706182144.06825.hjk@linutronix.de> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1286 Lines: 32 Am Montag 18 Juni 2007 20:55 schrieb Alexandre Oliva: > On Jun 18, 2007, Hans-Jürgen Koch wrote: > > > So, if a manufacturer used a ROM instead of a flash memory with the > > intention to make software modifications impossible, then it is bad, > > and when he did it for economical reasons, then it is a "natural barrier"? > > This sounds about right to me. > > Intent is very significant, but then, what vendor would justify the > choice of ROM as "intent to prevent modifications", if this amounted > to copyright infringement? Indeed. That nicely shows how useless any licensing discussion is when it comes to hardware design issues, including "Tivoization". > > Vendor would be entitled to the benefit of the doubt as to the > motivations in this case, so it would likely be unenforceable anyway. > Right. If GPL v3 comes out, there'll probably be a new task for hardware development engineers: How to find excuses for hardware that prevents software modifications and how to conceal the true intent. Hans - 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/