GPLv3 vs GPLv2

[Judland]

and maybe we can also put a clause in there that Microsoft can't use any of the code.

Time to take up and smell the coffee, they can't already, and idealogically they won't. Microsoft sees the GPL as cancer, plus would not risk having to release the Windows source code, all versions of the GPL would require them to do that.

I believe this would be only if they "embedded" GPL code into their own proprietary product. However, if the GPL code was "in conjuncture" with the proprietary portion (ie: not embedded) they would not have to release their code.

I think what Microshaft wouldn't like about using GPL software is that they would not be able to prevent people from taking those parts out of their OS and using the code any way they wanted too. They'd lose their strangle hold over individual users and that's what they're afraid of.

I think this is the freedom that Linus is concerned about. Even though we, as a community, do not like proprietary and closed products, companies should still be free to use GPL code in what ever product they wish to sell.

It's their hardware. I do _not_ want to ask for control of the "environment" back in a license. I want the improvement to the _software_, not the keys to the kingdom. The "environment" a program runs in (or the medium it is distributed on) doesn't have to be open. Just the program itself.

I may not be understanding the issues correctly, but this is how I see it at the moment.

[Judland]

Is based only false information, misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

If this is the case, then the GPLv3 is poorly worded and should not be issued in such a state.

If even the developers don't know what's going to happen to their software under the GPLv3, then how are the vendors distributing such software going to know what they can do or not?

It needs to BE CRYSTAL CLEAR in order to work. And when you're dealing with patents, things get sticky.

A patent just doesn't protect the method of doing XYZ, but sometimes the idea of XYZ itself! So, even though you write your own program to do XYZ doesn't mean you have the right to implement the idea of doing XYZ (at least in current U.S. patent law)... as far as I understand it.

[Judland]

Please do see this: http://www.fsf.org/news/gplv3-clarification

I still haven't read and absorbed the entire document, but I thought this was amusing...

In order to honor freedom 0, your freedom to run the program as you wish, a free software license may not contain "use restrictions" that would restrict what you can do with it.

Then just below is says...

GPLv3 will prohibit certain distribution practices...

So this is where the question of the term "use" came into it, I suspect.

[Tsuroerusu]

Even though we, as a community, do not like proprietary and closed products, companies should still be free to use GPL code in what ever product they wish to sell.

OK, when you say sell, do you mean doing what Novell does, aka package free and open source software up nicely, certify it for hardware, provide support etc. etc., or doing what Apple does, aka taking free code and making it proprietary?

Personally, I whole heartedly support what Novell does, I think it's good for the market, and for our community, but I despise what Apple does, I see it as stealing.

Linus obviously favors the GPL over the BSD license, and likes the idea of copyleft, if this was not the case he would probably have used the BSD license back in 1992 or have said so already (If he has, please let me know).

The GPLv3 does the same thing as GPLv2, by saying that if you use GPLed code in your product, your product must be GPLed as well, what GPLv3 says in addition to that is this:

"The Corresponding Source also includes any encryption or authorization keys necessary to install and/or execute modified versions from source code in the recommended or principal context of use, such that they can implement all the same functionality in the same range of circumstances. (For instance, if the work is a DVD player and can play certain DVDs, it must be possible for modified versions to play those DVDs. If the work communicates with an online service, it must be possible for modified versions to communicate with the same online service in the same way such that the service cannot distinguish.) A key need not be included in cases where use of the work normally implies the user already has the key and can read and copy it, as in privacy applications where users generate their own keys. However, the fact that a key is generated based on the object code of the work or is present in hardware that limits its use does not alter the requirement to include it in the Corresponding Source."

Aka, if you as a computer manufacturer makes a computer that will only run your custom builds of the Linux kernel, through the use of signing (DRM essentially), if you distribute that machine with free software (In this case software under GPLv3) you have to give the user your private key so he or she can sign their kernels to run on the machine they just bought from you.

I think that's perfectly reasonable, you as customer pay for hardware, you should be able to use it for everything you want to and with whatever software you want to, especially since the GPL already gives you the run the program as you see fit, and study+modify it as you see fit.

I may not be understanding the issues correctly, but this is how I see it at the moment.

What it in real life could mean is this: Linus thinks that if you buy a media center PC from say HP, which runs Linux, a GPLed free software kernel, it's fine for HP to lock it down so you can't change it that the software running in that computer at all, which would be quite easy with a proprietary BIOS or Intel's new extensible firmware interface (Another reason why I want a free BIOS, mad props to AMD for supporting that initiative).

Is based only false information, misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

If this is the case, then the GPLv3 is poorly worded and should not be issued in such a state.

If even the developers don't know what's going to happen to their software under the GPLv3, then how are the vendors distributing such software going to know what they can do or not?

It needs to BE CRYSTAL CLEAR in order to work. And when you're dealing with patents, things get sticky.

A patent just doesn't protect the method of doing XYZ, but sometimes the idea of XYZ itself! So, even though you write your own program to do XYZ doesn't mean you have the right to implement the idea of doing XYZ (at least in current U.S. patent law)... as far as I understand it.

This is what the 11th clause of the GPLv3 says about patents:

"11. Patents.

You receive the Program with a covenant from each author and conveyor of the Program, and of any material, conveyed under this License, on which the Program is based, that the covenanting party will not assert (or cause others to assert) any of the party's essential patent claims in the material that the party conveyed, against you, arising from your exercise of rights under this License. If you convey a covered work, you similarly covenant to all recipients, including recipients of works based on the covered work, not to assert any of your essential patent claims in the covered work.

If you convey a covered work, knowingly relying on a non-sublicensable patent license that is not generally available to all, you must either (1) act to shield downstream users against the possible patent infringement claims from which your license protects you, or (2) ensure that anyone can copy the Corresponding Source of the covered work, free of charge and under the terms of this License, through a publicly available network server or other readily accessible means.

Nothing in this License shall be construed as excluding or limiting any implied license or other defenses to infringement that may otherwise be available to you under applicable patent law. "

I agree with you that things should be crystal clear, but I am also of the opinion that the kernel developers was judging by some FUD or something, because not that much has changed between draft 1 and 2 as far as I know.
There are a few words I don't know what means, but that's I don't know the danish meaning of them, and in this case that is a requirement for me to understand it correct, but according to the FSF's GPLv3 clarification page, it essentially means:

"if someone has a patent covering XYZ, and distributes a GPL-covered program to do XYZ, he can't sue the program's subsequent users, redistributors and improvers for doing XYZ with their own versions of that program. This has no effect on other patents which that program does not implement."

(Source: http://www.fsf.org/news/gplv3-clarification)

You can see the current draft, at the time of writing we're a draft two, right here: http://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl-draft-2006-07-27.html

Please do see this: http://www.fsf.org/news/gplv3-clarification

I still haven't read and absorbed the entire document, but I thought this was amusing...

In order to honor freedom 0, your freedom to run the program as you wish, a free software license may not contain "use restrictions" that would restrict what you can do with it.

Then just below is says...

GPLv3 will prohibit certain distribution practices...

So this is where the question of the term "use" came into it, I suspect.

Yeah, laws gets to sound really weird, when translated into a language we as normal non-lawyer people can understand.

[CptnObvious999]

What in the *bleep* world are talking about? If a company is already using GPLed software, GPLv3 will have zero impact on their profit, and frankly if you as a hacker could modify a cellphone with all kinds of Asterisks integration, I think they would sell a lot more, I'm very interested in what Trolltech is up to in this area.

Well Tivo is already not the most liked company that by cable providers. I'd imagine if they didn't have DRM to protect the content you recorded then people would probably be able to easily get the content off it and remove the commercials and distribute it over the net. Chances are they would be pursued by an army of lawyers. Also if the Nintendo DS used Linux and it was under the GPLv3 then that would mean people could play pirated games as well as ROMs, the same ROMs that will be sold with the Wii. My point is we shouldn't be forcing them to open everything if they don't want to. When did open source become so closed?

yeah I know you are going to say its protecting our rights blah blah blah but companies should have rights too. A lot of people just seem to hate the corporate world but those people don't realize it's made up of people too, why not make the creators happy instead of only the consumers? 2 years ago we would be gratefull for them just to use Linux and now that it's really taking off we are trying to bully them?! there is no justice

and maybe we can also put a clause in there that Microsoft can't use any of the code.

Time to take up and smell the coffee, they can't already, and idealogically they won't. Microsoft sees the GPL as cancer, plus would not risk having to release the Windows source code, all versions of the GPL would require them to do that.

When I say something like that it is usually to exaggerate a point....

I am simply saying it's another restriction and depending on the project it could be easier said then done.

You may see it as a restriction, I see it as another way of ensuring that the down to earth end user of software has four essential freedoms that RMS defined over 20 years ago, both technically and spiritually.

I happily reject this 'freedom' then.

I know I will not change your mind on this and I am sure you will keep blasting me for my views

Ḯ'm not blasting you, I'm just simple arguing with you because I don't agree with you on X, Y and Z, this is what free speech is for, which is protected under both the US and danish constiutions.

Even free speech has limitations. For example screaming out "Bomb!" on a plane is against the law and for good reason. Everything should have limitations and I think GPLv3 is crossing the limitations.

There is a problem and that is the directions you gave didn't work.

I'd like to kindly ask you, what was that problem?
If it's the package manager, there is a solution: Smart, YUM or apt4rpm.

shat you could even install NetBSD's pkgsrc.

online registration didn't work, took over 1 hour to add 3 repos so I canceled it, found out the repos were showing in rug but not yast, manually removed them and re-added everything with yast, online update didn't work for a whole day for whatever reason, nvidia-kmp didn't work, manual install of nvidia drivers, fixed after reinstalling a bunch of xorg drivers uninstalling the nvidia drivers (despite the fact that someone on IRC told me not to) and reinstalling the nvidia binaries using their installer. After all that I had a working system for the most part. I also thing it is rediculous you should have to get a different package manager then the default, it should come with and use the best one by default.

And if you expect me to go around chanting SUSE, SUSE, SUSE like you do after it took me a week to get it working and many many hours of frustration for someone who's been using Linux for over 3 and a half years (and Gentoo, the one that is deemed most advanced) and recomend it to a new user you are sadly mistaken.

First of all, please see this, as I don't like repeating some things twice.

Also, maybe surprising to you, I don't recommend SUSE Linux 10.1 to new users (10.0 is great for new users, 10.1 is not!), and I don't expect others to do. I only recommended it right after it's release, but when I ran into the issues with the package manager myself, it got an H- and failed "the test" quite misserably. As I said, today I don't recommend SUSE 10.1 to new Linux users, because of the immense process it takes to get around the package management problems.

I beg to differ judging by the way you yell at me for not recommending it and blaming all the problems on me.

Even the people on the #suse IRC channel didn't know how to fix most of the problems. Any distrobution that takes over 1 hour to install 3 repos is not exactly the greatest in my oppinion. </rant>

Please allow me to quote myself:

I am in no way afraid of admitting that the distro I talk about all the time and recommend to people, has errors/bugs and things that aren't necessarily working that well. Just as an example, before Novell bought SUSE, YaST was a proprietary component, but luckily Novell was kind enough to release YaST under the GPL, also SUSE's performance has not always been the best, when I switched from 9.2 to 9.3 I noticed that 9.3 was quite sluggish, and finally the package manager in 10.1 has been a disaster, I can't defend that, this ZENworks framework has been so crappy until just recently, that it's almost a disgrace, but as I've stated before, every distro has made at least one release that's not exactly that well put together, for example Mandriva's 2005 version I had some problems with (I'm sure some earlier releases had issues as well), Fedora 1 and 2 was not exactly a gift from heaven either, Kubuntu up until Dapper has been of significantly lower quality (Put it in a kind way) than just standard Ubuntu (Which is why I see the Ubuntu project's KDE support as half-hearted, because Kubuntu is always of less quality than Ubuntu) etc. etc.
So I ask people to at least cut SUSE a little slack, SUSE's past releases may not always have had the best performance but their stability has never had a problem, their releases have always been rock solid, but with not so good performance in too many cases,

I wasn't bashing SUSE 10.1 into the ground like you do with Gentoo and the 'GCC screensaver', I was simply saying I don't recommend it.


And no one replied about the paying for sourcecode distribution. Does anyone know if it is true or not?

[CptnObvious999]

Personally, I whole heartedly support what Novell does

Well that's a surprise

I may not be understanding the issues correctly, but this is how I see it at the moment.

What it in real life could mean is this: Linus thinks that if you buy a media center PC from say HP, which runs Linux, a GPLed free software kernel, it's fine for HP to lock it down so you can't change it that the software running in that computer at all

Why not? they made it. For the most part there is a lot of competition for hardware vendors that I can just buy something else.

[Tsuroerusu]

I'd imagine if they didn't have DRM to protect the content you recorded then people would probably be able to easily get the content off it and remove the commercials and distribute it over the net. Chances are they would be pursued by an army of lawyers.

Well, they could just make a proprietary user-space application (Like Real has done with RealPlayer and as Macromedia did with the Flash player) that would do all the DRM stuff, and if this is already the case, aka that DRM and copy protection is not built into the kernel, but done in userspace, then the GPLv3 will be no problem at all for them.

Also if the Nintendo DS used Linux and it was under the GPLv3 then that would mean people could play pirated games as well as ROMs,

Well, there's a couple of things, Nintendo could do here, and coming from me this is gonna sound anti-free software, but just to say something against Devon's argument of GPLv3 forcing people to be open and causing an industry crash.
First of all, as I already said, they could have all the game execution code running outside of kernel space, aka in userspace, that would allow them to basically anything they already do.
I don't know what the GPLv3 says about this, but they if they wanted to have the stuff in the kernel, then they could put that kernel on a write-once flash chip, aka ROM (Read Only Memory), then nobody couldn't modify it, because of a physical restriction, although you could just put a modchip in there that disables the onboard ROM and has it's own firmware, but since they don't have Nintendo's proprietary application that actually runs the game, they can't do that either.

the same ROMs that will be sold with the Wii.

All game TV consoles that has used CDs or DVD have you some kind of proprietary extension of the medium, such as a proprietary file system or a physical hole in the disc, or even both at the same time.

My point is we shouldn't be forcing them to open everything if they don't want to. When did open source become so closed?

They can just avoid putting crap (Copy protection and DRM) into the kernel itself, if they wanna do that stuff, run it in userspace and there's no problem.

yeah I know you are going to say its protecting our rights blah blah blah but companies should have rights too.

I agree to a certain point, because if you give companies too many rights compared with an individual user, you end up with a situation like we have today with the RIAA and MPAA, who lobby in Congress and can basically get any law they want to passed without too much effort.

A lot of people just seem to hate the corporate world but those people don't realize it's made up of people too, why not make the creators happy instead of only the consumers?

We do respect their rights, I think that if Richard Stallman was to do 100% of things his own way, you wouldn't even be allowed to make a non-free program using the GNU tools or linking to glibc.

2 years ago we would be gratefull for them just to use Linux and now that it's really taking off we are trying to bully them?! there is no justice

Us trying to bully them? HA! It's them (RIAA and MPAA primarily, but all the computer companies just goes along when the two retarded music and movie groups tries to make new laws that's force DRM down people's throats) attempting to lock us completely out of anything multimedia related, first patents and probably very soon DRM.

When I say something like that it is usually to exaggerate a point....

Well, why is Linux kernel code even important to Microsoft, they already can steal BSD code, which they already have done for the TCP/IP stack in Windows 2000 to and excluding Vista, they don't need GPLed code.

online registration didn't work, took over 1 hour to add 3 repos so I canceled it, found out the repos were showing in rug but not yast, manually removed them and re-added everything with yast, online update didn't work for a whole day for whatever reason, nvidia-kmp didn't work, manual install of nvidia drivers, fixed after reinstalling a bunch of xorg drivers uninstalling the nvidia drivers (despite the fact that someone on IRC told me not to) and reinstalling the nvidia binaries using their installer. After all that I had a working system for the most part.

OK, that's completely fair, I can accept that, that's the fault of SUSE's package manager.

I also thing it is rediculous you should have to get a different package manager then the default, it should come with and use the best one by default.

You can't delay things forever (Take a page outta Microsoft's book on this one), especially when you have an enterprise release only a few months away, and SUSE 10.1 was already delayed for two months because of the package manager, which was put into the distro at a very late beta stage, which pretty much all the SUSE developers have said was a big mistake. So 10.1 became kind of "the SLED 10 base" which, in terms of the pacakge manager, was like a SLED beta or alpha.

SUSE has been working very very hard fixing that package manager, it was swapped because Novell's needs some advanced stuff for their enterprise products, and because it will benefit the openSUSE.org project one it's build service launches.
Updated ISOs of 10.1 will be out quite soon, so that people won't have to face the ridiculously hard task of updating the package manager etc. etc.
And in 10 days, there's gonna be only two months until 10.2 reaches final, which will have the entire package management stack signifcantly improved.
There's no defending SUSE for making a super dumb development decision, but I still think people need to cut them some slack, because it is only the package manager, it's easy to install Smart or YUM, which are available on the install CDs, and that fixes all the problems. We're not talking desktop instablity, crashyness or kernel unreliability.

I beg to differ judging by the way you yell at me for not recommending it and blaming all the problems on me.

I yelled, with the capital letters, because I assumed you didn't take my instructions into account, since you had not read completely up on the GPLv3, for example I think you wasn't aware of the fact that Apple could still release iTunes for a GPLv3ed Linux platform. That assumtion was a mistake on my part, and I'd like to apologize for that, but you also started out saying that you wouldn't recommend SUSE for a reason you wouldn't state, the reason I got a little annoyed by that is because over at linuxin.dk, danish Linux forum, we are on a weekly basis having some n00b come in and say something like "Linux is a piece of crap, because I can play WoW and FEAR, and use Photoshop, how to I install my beloved Windows?". They almost never state constructive reasons in their main post, we always have to dig for that, which gets annoying.

Even the people on the #suse IRC channel didn't know how to fix most of the problems. Any distrobution that takes over 1 hour to install 3 repos is not exactly the greatest in my oppinion. </rant>

Nobody is perfect, the people on the Gentoo IRC channel didn't know how to fix the damn udev issues on my Xbox either, so I guess this one is a draw.

I wasn't bashing SUSE 10.1 into the ground like you do with Gentoo and the 'GCC screensaver', I was simply saying I don't recommend it.

I have bashed Gentoo, but not into ground, I've made pranks, jokes and fun of Gentoo for being such a snail to install whatever you want (And same as you don't like spending an hour adding three repos to YaST, when I had already recommend that you use Smart, I don't like to be forced to use community packaged apps to get KDE) within your lifetime. Look at FreeBSD, they recommend that users use ports as they then get all the latest versions of the apps with security updates, but do provide over 14.000 binary packages for users to get up and running real fast. What I do have and still bash Gentoo for is that damn thing about updating your configuration files, it can so frustrating or hard to make decision that people, including myself, just say yes whatever to the questions and end up with a broken system, sure we can RTFM, but like with spyware on Windows, people are used to see banners pop up while they play Minesweeper so they ignore it.

Why not? they made it. For the most part there is a lot of competition for hardware vendors that I can just buy something else.

Well I bought it, why should some company decide what I do with my hardware?
And I know you're gonna say "then don't buy it", but if in the future you can't buy another DVR that doesn't have hardware DRM in it, then we're pretty screwed, this is what the GPLv3 would defend against.

[Judland]

Now we come to the philosophical portion of our program....

Let's put a few logical statement into the "Bat-computer" and see what happens.

FREE = not obstructed, restricted, or impeded; not being used or occupied; not hampered or restricted in its normal operation

GPL = A license that protects users rights by making restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender these rights.

LINUX = An operating system released under the GPL

Now, that we've got all of those programmed in, let's ask the "Bat-computer" to calculate response to this question using pure logic...

Code: Select all

Is Linux free?

Code: Select all

Answer = NO

To be truly free, a license would have to exists that simply states something like:

"Works released under this license is free to be used in any way, shape or form, by any one or group of people in any part of the world, in any way they wish, with no restrictions or limitations, now or in the future, with no revisions to this agreement at any time."

There you go... the beginning of the first real, FREE, license agreement!

What should I call it? How about FNGPL: FNGPL is Not the GPL

So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is, not even the FSF is free from locking people in to a user agreement that allows them to be completely free to do what they want.

[Tsuroerusu]

Now we come to the philosophical portion of our program....

Let's put a few logical statement into the "Bat-computer" and see what happens.

BAT!??!?!? What the *bleep*, where did DOS come from all of a sudden?

FREE = not obstructed, restricted, or impeded; not being used or occupied; not hampered or restricted in its normal operation

GPL = A license that protects users rights by making restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender these rights.

LINUX = An operating system released under the GPL

I'll agree with these.

Now, that we've got all of those programmed in, let's ask the "Bat-computer" to calculate response to this question using pure logic...

Code: Select all

Is Linux free?

Code: Select all

Answer = NO

To be truly free, a license would have to exists that simply states something like:

"Works released under this license is free to be used in any way, shape or form, by any one or group of people in any part of the world, in any way they wish, with no restrictions or limitations, now or in the future, with no revisions to this agreement at any time."

That's the BSD license for ya, except that it requires some copyright notices to be left in place.

There you go... the beginning of the first real, FREE, license agreement!

Does the BSD, or MIT licenses, pretty much, suit that need?

What should I call it? How about FNGPL: FNGPL is Not the GPL

Sounds reasonable, and you probably won't get into trademakr trouble for that.

[CptnObvious999]

Also if the Nintendo DS used Linux and it was under the GPLv3 then that would mean people could play pirated games as well as ROMs,

Well, there's a couple of things, Nintendo could do here, and coming from me this is gonna sound anti-free software, but just to say something against Devon's argument of GPLv3 forcing people to be open and causing an industry crash.
First of all, as I already said, they could have all the game execution code running outside of kernel space, aka in userspace, that would allow them to basically anything they already do.
I don't know what the GPLv3 says about this, but they if they wanted to have the stuff in the kernel, then they could put that kernel on a write-once flash chip, aka ROM (Read Only Memory), then nobody couldn't modify it, because of a physical restriction, although you could just put a modchip in there that disables the onboard ROM and has it's own firmware, but since they don't have Nintendo's proprietary application that actually runs the game, they can't do that either.

Those are work arounds. If any company could do that it would be useless to have the DRM clause at all then, so why have it.

I wasn't bashing SUSE 10.1 into the ground like you do with Gentoo and the 'GCC screensaver', I was simply saying I don't recommend it.

I have bashed Gentoo, but not into ground, I've made pranks, jokes and fun of Gentoo for being such a snail to install whatever you want (And same as you don't like spending an hour adding three repos to YaST, when I had already recommend that you use Smart, I don't like to be forced to use community packaged apps to get KDE) within your lifetime. Look at FreeBSD, they recommend that users use ports as they then get all the latest versions of the apps with security updates, but do provide over 14.000 binary packages for users to get up and running real fast. What I do have and still bash Gentoo for is that damn thing about updating your configuration files, it can so frustrating or hard to make decision that people, including myself, just say yes whatever to the questions and end up with a broken system, sure we can RTFM, but like with spyware on Windows, people are used to see banners pop up while they play Minesweeper so they ignore it.

Fair enough. Although I like the way gentoo updates config files since you can see the diffs using dispatch-conf and choose whether you want to merge or get rid of it but I guess that just my opinion.


I found a great article that is right on the money as far as I am concerned: http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000100

[Tsuroerusu]

Those are work arounds. If any company could do that it would be useless to have the DRM clause at all then, so why have it.

The DRM clause tries to say something similar: "If DRM is useless, why use it?"

But whatever, I'm sure Nintendo would find a solution if they wanted to use Linux, although if they didn't find one, they'd probably just use a BSD.

Fair enough. Although I like the way gentoo updates config files since you can see the diffs using dispatch-conf and choose whether you want to merge or get rid of it but I guess that just my opinion.

it a big big pain because I had no idea to with the udev rules and stuff, so I just told it to install the new version and my system wouldn't boot again, on SUSE or say OpenBSD I do either "yum update" and "pkg_add -ivu", super simple.

I found a great article that is right on the money as far as I am concerned: http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000100

Because I'm a little tired right now, I havn't read the entire thing, I bookmarked and will tomorrow, but by just looking at it real quick it's obvious that it sides with Linus, and isn't neutral.
I side with the FSF because I agree with what they do against software pantents and DRM, I can only dread what will face Windows users in the future.

[CptnObvious999]

The DRM clause tries to say something similar: "If DRM is useless, why use it?"

But whatever, I'm sure Nintendo would find a solution if they wanted to use Linux, although if they didn't find one, they'd probably just use a BSD.

as far as I know Linux has the best embedded device support and I think it would just be better to go with their own custom os but whatever.

it a big big pain because I had no idea to with the udev rules and stuff, so I just told it to install the new version and my system wouldn't boot again, on SUSE or say OpenBSD I do either "yum update" and "pkg_add -ivu", super simple.

I've never had that happen, but hey, not every distro is perfect

I found a great article that is right on the money as far as I am concerned: http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000100

Because I'm a little tired right now, I havn't read the entire thing, I bookmarked and will tomorrow, but by just looking at it real quick it's obvious that it sides with Linus, and isn't neutral.
I side with the FSF because I agree with what they do against software pantents and DRM, I can only dread what will face Windows users in the future.

It's actually not that biased and brings up some good points for both sides but you have to read it to tell yourself.

[Judland]

BAT!??!?!? What the *bleep*, where did DOS come from all of a sudden?

Bat as in "To the Bat-cave, Robin!"

There you go... the beginning of the first real, FREE, license agreement!
Does the BSD, or MIT licenses, pretty much, suit that need?

Well, no, not really. If there are ANY restrictions, then I guess it truly cannot be considered free.... if left to pure logic. It's either a 1 or a 0; True or False... nothing other.

[Patrick]

Nick Petreley from Linux Journal weighs in:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000100

[Vogateer]

This discussion just keeps going, doesn't it? Fun stuff, though.

Before I start, sorry about misspelling your name, Troels, I was wondering about it when I wrote it, but didn't want to lose my train of thought and forgot to check it afterwards. Judging by your other responses in this thread, I can see you've taken my unsolicited advice to heart and no longer have your Intensity Volume Knob cranked up to 11.

Okay, here's a question. I'm thinking of the anti-DRM clause, and the ability to tie specific software into the hardware. Has anyone seen the video of how to hack the Diebold voting machine?

Well, that made me wonder. I think everyone here knows that Linux should be the operating system of choice for voting machines for security reasons alone, if not for reasons of openness. The ease with which they could hack the machine was frightening. Would not this digital signature checking method being used by Tivo be a relatively reasonable solution to prevent these machines from running foreign code? It seems to me that GPLv3 would prevent this, a perfectly reasonable use of "Tivoization" methods. This is just one example, but Linus Torvalds is probably right in that a lot more people can rally around GPLv2, which is a license that so many people non-FSF people can love. This doesn't mean that the GPLv3 shouldn't exist, obviously, but the kernel developers seem to be rightfully wary of making such a license change.