Re: mea culpa on the meaning of Tivoization

Hans-Jürgen Koch
2007-06-18T19:45:16Z

Am Montag 18 Juni 2007 20:55 schrieb Alexandre Oliva:
> On Jun 18, 2007, Hans-Jürgen Koch <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
>
> > So, if a manufacturer used a ROM instead of a flash memory with the
> > intention to make software modifications impossible, then it is bad,
> > and when he did it for economical reasons, then it is a "natural barrier"?
>
> This sounds about right to me.
>
> Intent is very significant, but then, what vendor would justify the
> choice of ROM as "intent to prevent modifications", if this amounted
> to copyright infringement?

Indeed. That nicely shows how useless any licensing discussion is
when it comes to hardware design issues, including "Tivoization".

>
> Vendor would be entitled to the benefit of the doubt as to the
> motivations in this case, so it would likely be unenforceable anyway.
>

Right. If GPL v3 comes out, there'll probably be a new task for
hardware development engineers: How to find excuses for hardware that
prevents software modifications and how to conceal the true intent.

Hans