Pripravuje sa nova GPL. Jadrom sporu sa stava DRM (Digital Rights Management). Pastol som sem vypisky z par clankov, ktore sa tym podrobnejsie zaoberaju. Samotny draft GPLv3 k nahliadnutiu tu.

New GPL draft takes second crack at DRM

The license also says if some form of digital key is required for software to be installed or to run--even if that key is in hardware--it must be included in the software as well so that users can run modified versions the software.

Source code that must be supplied with GPL software must include "any encryption or authorization keys necessary to install and/or execute modified versions from source code in the recommended or principal context of use," the second draft said. "The fact that a key...is present in hardware that limits its use does not alter the requirement to include it in the corresponding source."

In the license's preamble, the first draft's had this to say about what it called "digital restrictions management": "DRM is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the GPL, which is to protect users' freedom; therefore, the GPL ensures that the software it covers will neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden."

The second draft has been rewritten as follows: "Some computers are designed to deny users access to install or run modified versions of the software inside them. This is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the GPL, which is to protect users' freedom. Therefore, the GPL ensures that the software it covers will not be restricted in this way."

Source: ZDNet

Torvalds says DRM isn't necessarily bad

The Free Software Foundation is in the process of revising the GPL, a seminal document that not only governs thousands of open-source projects but also functions as the constitution of the free software movement. One of the major new provisions in the proposed GPL version 3 is designed to prevent use of GPL software in conjunction with digital rights management. DRM technology does everything from encrypting movies and music to permitting only a digitally signed software to run on a specific computing device.

In January, Torvalds said he plans to keep the Linux kernel under the current version 2 of the GPL. That was seen as something of a rebuff to the Free Software Foundation and its president, Richard Stallman.

"A lot of people see the GPL as a 'crusading' license, and I think that's partly because the FSF really has been acting like a crusader," Torvalds wrote. "But I think that one of the main reasons Linux has been successful is that I don't think that the Linux community really is into crusading (some small parts of it are, but it's not the main reason). I think Linux has made the GPL more 'socially acceptable,' by being a hell of a lot less religious about it than the FSF was."

"GPLv2 is fair. It asks others to give back exactly what I myself offer: the source code to play with," Torvalds said. "The GPLv3 fundamentally changes that balance, in my opinion. It asks for more than it gives. It no longer asks for just source back, it asks for control over whatever system you used the source in."

Source: ZDNet

Torvalds critical of new GPL draft

GPLv3 "basically says, 'We don't want access just to your software modifications. We want access to your hardware, too,'" Torvalds said. "I don't think it's my place as a software developer to judge how hardware works around it."

But the Free Software Foundation argues that it's modernizing the license, not changing its spirit. It's seeking to prevent hardware makers from using DRM as a technological end-run around the license's legal requirements for programmer freedoms. "If you're keeping the right to modify and not conveying that right to modify, you're violating the license," said Eben Moglen, the foundation's top lawyer, in an earlier interview.

Torvalds sees it differently.

"Say I'm a hardware manufacturer. I decide I love some particular piece of open-source software, but when I sell my hardware, I want to make sure it runs only one particular version of that software, because that's what I've validated. So I make my hardware check the cryptographic signature of the binary before I run it," Torvalds said. "The GPLv3 doesn't seem to allow that, and in fact, most of the GPLv3 changes seem to be explicitly designed exactly to not allow the above kind of use, which I don't think it has any business doing."

One major company still isn't satisfied. Hewlett-Packard, which sells Linux servers and is involved in the GPLv3 revision process, wants changes to how GPLv3 treats patents.

"HP had hoped that the second draft would clarify the patent provision...to ease concern that mere distribution of a single copy of GPL-licensed software might have significant adverse intellectual property impact on a company," said Christine Martino, vice president of HP's Open Source and Linux Organization, in a statement. "Unfortunately, the concern lingers in draft 2."

Source: ZDNet