news.zdnet.com— This is cool, the GPL is going to guns with DRM stating "GPL software cannot use 'digital restrictions' on copyright material unless users can control them."
Jan 19, 2006View in Crawl 4
I agree with the people that thinks this is a set in the wrong direction. I for one am not a fan of DRM or the media companies but has anyone stopped to think about how this will effect open source software?Let me put to you his way, if DRM is not allowed in Linux do you think there will ever be a "legal" music download service for Linux? Or a "legal" movie download service?No digg because this actually sucks.
Here's the thing,You can still write GPLed software that includes DRM -- You simply choose to offer it under an older version of the GPL. You can even use GPLed source to write DRM enabled software, as long as the author of that source is providing their software under V1 or V2 of the GPL.So basically, anyone that writes GPL software has a choice whether they want to offer it under V3 or some other less restritive version. Or even the LGPL. Or even if they just want to make it public domain, or some other license of their own design.While I am still unsure about the legal strength of the GPL as a legally binding contract, it's heart is in the right place and gives consideration to both parties.
Sniper: My question was intended to mean "can google use its linux servers to encode content with DRM, distribute it, and manage the web store for it?"Glibc is likely used by all of Google's current systems that do this sort of thing (in various stages of development), and so won't Google have to reengineer some significant chunks of its code to work around this restriction (assuming GPL3 applies to glibc)...
I'm glad that most Digg readers have reached the correct conclusion that this change will be bad for the Open Source movement and bad for freedom. It's quite ironic that the FSF thinks that restricting freedom via DRM is bad but via the GPL3 is good.
It would be easy to imagine a completely free, open source, and unbreakable DRM. rnrnFor example, DRM could encrypt the product such that the key is your credit card information. You could not redistribute the product unless you sent your credit card information along with the product to be used as the key to decript.rnrnYou could mess with the source code all day long and you could not break that DRM unless you had the key.rnrnHow is this against the spirit of GPL?rnrnrnNow on the other hand, if you are saying that you cannot limit the redistribution of the GPL software by putting DRM on the GPL software. Obviously that is against the spirit of GPL.
Ok, on second thought, I see the error in the logic of my last statement.Using GPL to write DRM software would be breakable. You could break the DRM on products that you purchased and redistribute untraceable copies but you could not break the DRM on product that someone else purchased unless you had their key.
"I'm glad that most Digg readers have reached the correct conclusion that this change will be bad for the Open Source movement and bad for freedom."I don't see how it's bad for open source? Companies that have used open source as part of their DRM software have ran in to trouble meeting all the requirements of GPL v2 because they don't want to release their DRM code. Once they release the code for their DRM cracking becomes almost trivial relative to do it without the code. Even before the GPL v3 DRM and open source weren't good for each other. Now the GPL v3 just out right prohibits the use of GPLed code in DRM systems.
das7282Jan 19, 2006
I agree with the people that thinks this is a set in the wrong direction. I for one am not a fan of DRM or the media companies but has anyone stopped to think about how this will effect open source software?Let me put to you his way, if DRM is not allowed in Linux do you think there will ever be a "legal" music download service for Linux? Or a "legal" movie download service?No digg because this actually sucks.
matt2kJan 19, 2006
Here's the thing,You can still write GPLed software that includes DRM -- You simply choose to offer it under an older version of the GPL. You can even use GPLed source to write DRM enabled software, as long as the author of that source is providing their software under V1 or V2 of the GPL.So basically, anyone that writes GPL software has a choice whether they want to offer it under V3 or some other less restritive version. Or even the LGPL. Or even if they just want to make it public domain, or some other license of their own design.While I am still unsure about the legal strength of the GPL as a legally binding contract, it's heart is in the right place and gives consideration to both parties.
grandalfJan 19, 2006
Sniper: My question was intended to mean "can google use its linux servers to encode content with DRM, distribute it, and manage the web store for it?"Glibc is likely used by all of Google's current systems that do this sort of thing (in various stages of development), and so won't Google have to reengineer some significant chunks of its code to work around this restriction (assuming GPL3 applies to glibc)...
grandalfJan 19, 2006
I'm glad that most Digg readers have reached the correct conclusion that this change will be bad for the Open Source movement and bad for freedom. It's quite ironic that the FSF thinks that restricting freedom via DRM is bad but via the GPL3 is good.
edmcguirkJan 19, 2006
It would be easy to imagine a completely free, open source, and unbreakable DRM. rnrnFor example, DRM could encrypt the product such that the key is your credit card information. You could not redistribute the product unless you sent your credit card information along with the product to be used as the key to decript.rnrnYou could mess with the source code all day long and you could not break that DRM unless you had the key.rnrnHow is this against the spirit of GPL?rnrnrnNow on the other hand, if you are saying that you cannot limit the redistribution of the GPL software by putting DRM on the GPL software. Obviously that is against the spirit of GPL.
edmcguirkJan 19, 2006
Ok, on second thought, I see the error in the logic of my last statement.Using GPL to write DRM software would be breakable. You could break the DRM on products that you purchased and redistribute untraceable copies but you could not break the DRM on product that someone else purchased unless you had their key.
Closed AccountJan 19, 2006
"I'm glad that most Digg readers have reached the correct conclusion that this change will be bad for the Open Source movement and bad for freedom."I don't see how it's bad for open source? Companies that have used open source as part of their DRM software have ran in to trouble meeting all the requirements of GPL v2 because they don't want to release their DRM code. Once they release the code for their DRM cracking becomes almost trivial relative to do it without the code. Even before the GPL v3 DRM and open source weren't good for each other. Now the GPL v3 just out right prohibits the use of GPLed code in DRM systems.