Once again Linux Torvalds has proven he is a complete schmuck. For the newly drafted General Public License provisions address the issue of a dark and evil technology becoming ever more pervasive in our industry, DRM. In his wisdom Stallman has addressed this in GPL version 3. Linus, who has demonstrated his corporate sellout hypocrisy in the past, such as when he chastised the creator of Samba, again sides with corporate greed and against the traditional core values of his own baby, Linux. It’s time for someone to fork the Linux kernel and take it away from the now corrupted Linux Torvalds.

This story from Expressive Oppostion:

DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is a step backwards for technology. It is a way of making high tech things do less than they are capable of. It is a way of blocking culture and information from the underclass and citizens of 3rd world nations. DRM helps to make information and culture an expensive commodity for the rich, just like the Latin texts of the dark ages before the invention of movable type. Thanks to technology like DRM we now enter an information dark age.

Sony has demonstrated the danger of DRM by spreading a virus, which is still in the wild. DRM not only limits the spread of information and enrichment of culture, but also jeopardizes the security of computer systems and networks. DRM is also a nightmare from a support point of view. Companies embracing DRM protected software often find themselves in trouble during an emergency.

Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen of the Free Software Foundation have wisely placed in the forthcoming version of the General Public License verbiage to prevent free software from being leveraged for the dark forces of DRM. Sound dramatic? Well the drama begins with Linus embracing DRM and rejecting the proposed GPL version 3. Linus Torvalds had the audacity to speak out in opposition of Stallman’s efforts.

“I think it’s insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example,” Torvalds explained.

“So I don’t think the GPL version 3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don’t want to convert any of my code.”

Stallman and Moglen are very wise to address issues like DRM and also patent restrictions, which stifle innovation and limit the growth of new technology. Provisions in the first draft take a hard line defense against software patent abuse and empower free software developers.

No program licensed under GPL3 can “illegally invade users’ privacy.” Furthermore, you can’t distribute a GPL-licensed program using any kind of technology that restricts the user’s ability to redistribute the program under the terms of the GPL.

Detractors are calling Stallman’s provisions a form of activism. This is a rather cynical approach to what are actually provisions in the best interest of all open source software developers everywhere. Without the support of Linus Torvalds the license will most unfortunately be ignored. Linux users tend to zealously worship their corrupted iconic hero Linux Torvalds resulting in blind devotion to what are no longer good values.

trc author: Trent Keller

This entry was posted on Friday, February 3rd, 2006 at 11:12 am and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.