Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

Alexandre Oliva
2007-06-18T19:44:44Z

On Jun 18, 2007, "Dave Neuer" <mr.fred.smoothie@pobox.com> wrote:

> On 6/18/07, Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com> wrote:

>> Seriously, looking only at the downside of anti-tivoization (tivoizer
>> might turn us down), without even acknowledging that, should the
>> tivoizer change practice and respect users' freedoms, you'd be able to
>> get far more contributions from all those users, is typical minimax
>> strategy.

>> Every time you enable someone to disrespect other users' freedoms WRT
>> your software, you cut yourself out of some contributions that user
>> could make. Even if you completely disregard the moral and ethical
>> aspects of software freedom, the open source mentality inherently
>> depends on the notion of respect for others' freedoms. You only reap
>> the benefits of open source when the user gets the freedoms respected.

> Alexandre, while I backed you up on the whole "spirit of the GPL
> hasn't changed" thing, I think you are wrong here.

Thank you, this is the first time someone voices a coherent argument
that doesn't completely dismiss the potential benefits of prohibiting
tivoization, and doesn't focus only on the potential downsides of such
measures. Even though you come to a different conclusion than I did,
I thank you very much for not pretending the point does not exist at
all, or phrasing arguments that don't counter the point in any way.

> we undoubtedly get more back in the form of software contributions
> from paid developers of TiVO-like companies than from the very few
> end users with the skill to hack the software or the inclination to
> aquire said skill. The simple fact is that most end users of most
> electronic devices don't care about the Freeness of the software,
> they care if their device works.

This is also true of computer users in general. So what is it that
makes this case different?

Why should we ask vendors to pass on the corresponding sources to
users, if most users don't care?

Why should we ask vendors to not use patents to stop a user from
modifying and sharing the software they distribute, if most users
don't care?

What is it that makes the reasoning different for the particular case
of vendors using technical tricks to stop a user from enjoying the
benefits of modifications she could make herself, which could then
very well benefit the entire community and even the vendor?

> If you disregard the ethical dimension, I think it's hard to argue
> w/ a straight face that Linus' stance is wrong from a pragmatic
> standpoint.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I hadn't seen arguments that even pointed in this
direction, so the complete dismissal of the upsides came off as
selective attention.

Let's see how this proceeds.

> The problem is that the people saying "just don't buy TiVOs" know full
> well that because the number of end users who care is so small, they
> have _no_ economic power to change the situation, and that's why
> people who do consider this an ethical issue want to leverage the
> power the copyright holders have both legally and by virtue of their
> expertise to force the hardware vendors to cooperate w/ end users.

Yes, your reasoning makes sense to me. I can't speak for the FSF's
intentions, but I have no reason to disbelieve it's moved by ethics,
rather than by some plot to hurt TiVo.

--
Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}