New Linux license takes aim at DRM and Hollywood

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This article is 100% FUD

This whole article is FUD. Maybe unintentionally, but it's FUD nonetheless.

TiVo is in no danger from GPL v3 (despite what the article says, and what Eben Moglen says, and what the FSF thinks - actually TiVo is in MORE danger from CableLabs, who I suspect won't let them make a Linux powered box with a CableCard.) None the "unpleasantness" that TiVo does is in GPL'ed software. Sure, they use the Linux kernel and some GPLed libraries in their TiVo boxes, and for those they have complied nicely (not just "by the skin of their teeth") and offer the sources at their website - and you CAN recompile it and you CAN deploy your changes on your TiVo box. But TiVo's own PVR code is not GPLed, and it's in no danger of being subsumed by the "viral-like" GPL, because it uses only published Linux interfaces, and it's well accepted that applications that use those interfaces are most definitely NOT "derived works."

You _never_ _could_ make (effective) GPL'ed DRM software. That was obvious to almost everyone from the beginning, and GPL v3 didn't change things. There's a clause in there now to make it obvious to that last 5% who didn't get it. DRM relies solely on employing secrets in end user' equipment, and you can't keep it secret if you are obligated to publish it. Duh.

"The planned anti-DRM changes to the GPL are significant because the entertainment industry regularly uses Linux-powered computers in the production process..." Wrong again. GPL v3 won't have any affect here. That's because the media that studios manipulate in the production process ISN'T DRM'ED. DRM is applied at the last possible moment, during creation of the DVD master. As far as I know, none of the software that applies CSS to a DVD master is GPL'ed. (By my reading, GPL v3 doesn't even say you can't do it - it just says it isn't "effective.")

The important point (entirely missed by the article) is that GPL v3 now prohibits you from using DRM or "Trusted Computing" methods to secure GPL code! This was a genuine loophole in the original GPL: some nefarious vendor could take someone's GPLed software, then digitally sign it and deploy it on a TPM-secured device. They could offer sources in compliance with GPL v2, and sure, you could modify them and re-compile them, but you needed the (nefarious) vendor's key to sign it, or else you couldn't execute your modified code!

(There's just such a platform sitting on my hip right now - a Motorola i930 smart phone. It runs Windows Mobile 2003, but I can't run anything on it that doesn't have Nextel's signature, and they won't give me a key. Don't anyone buy this thing. Get a Treo - and I mean the 650, not the 700w.)

Posted by: krehbiel   Posted on: 01/19/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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