Re: Flame Linus to a crisp!

Timothy Miller
2003-04-24T13:43:39Z

Downing, Thomas wrote:

>IMHO the DRM issue is not one that will be settled in either the software
>or hardware area, but in the legal one.
>
>[snip]
>
>So this leads me to a position I would have, without reflection, not taken;
>while I despise the current subversion of fair use and first point of sale
>undertaken by MPAA, RIAA, et al., I agree with what I understand Linus to
>say - DRM yes or no should not be mandated by license.
>-
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>

I feel like I'm late into this discussion, but anyhow...

Do we have any kind of agenda to spread Linux? I mean, it sure is
spreading, eating into other markets, for instance Windows. But how
interested are we in doing things specifically to accelerate that?

One of the things that we could do to accelerate the adoption of Linux
is to support DRM. Yes, we know it's evil, but if we are the ones
developing it, at least we know what it is and is not doing and how it
works.

As much as I dislike Microsoft for its business practices, I still feel
uneasy having illegal copies of their Office suite. So I use OpenOffice
instead. Likewise, I prefer to use Linux because having a free copy of
it is perfectly legal. And finally, although I do like the idea of
being able to sample music before I buy it, I feel an attachment to
artists I listen to, so I buy their CD's (despite the fact that it helps
the RIAA).

So the idea of having something which prevents me from illegally
pirating something doesn't bother me so much. Whenever I have to do
serious work, I either use an OSS tool, or I pay money for a piece of
software so I can get support -- sometimes, I even pay for OSS stuff.
The idea of a DRM system malfunctioning and preventing me from
accessing my legally-licensed material DOES bother me very much, but I
think only in the hands of people like us can it be done right, because
we're the very ones who would suffer were it to break.

In the end, of course, this is up to Linus, at least in terms of the
mainline tree. Whatever his opinion might be, we're going to have to
make a bullet-proof argument to officially go one way or the other on this.