NEW YORK: Open source operating system Linux creator Linus Torvalds is not convinced by the second draft of the revised General Public License (GPLv3).
Torvalds is mainly concerned about the clause in the GPLv3 second draft, which covers digital rights management technology that puts controls on how computers can run software or supply content such as movies or music.
Torvalds says while the GPL version 2 was a basic "quid pro quo" arrangement requiring anyone modifying the source code to notify the changes in public, the draft of GPLv3 extends much further.
Torvalds describes the relevant clause in GPLv3 as saying, 'We don't want access just to your software modifications. We want access to your hardware, too.'
"I don't think it's my place as a software developer to judge how hardware works around it," said Torvalds.
The Free Software Foundation, which had come out with the revised draft Thursday, said it is only modernizing the licence and not changing its spirit. It claimed it is seeking to prevent hardware makers from using DRM as a technological end-run around the license's legal requirements for programmer freedoms.
Torvalds, however, is not impressed. He has justifications. He says, "Say, I'm a hardware manufacturer. I decide I love some particular piece of open-source software, but when I sell my hardware, I want to make sure it runs only one particular version of that software, because that's what I've validated. So, I make my hardware check the cryptographic signature of the binary before I run it.
"The GPLv3 doesn't seem to allow that, and in fact, most of the GPLv3 changes seem to be explicitly designed exactly to not allow the above kind of use, which I don't think it has any business doing."
Torvalds did not spare the foundation. He said the foundation does not seem interested in any feedback. "They set up several 'committees' to get comments from various industry players, and everything I've heard about the process is that they then ignored them all and did what they wanted anyway."
Torvalds' objection appears to not just to the terms in the new draft, but to the foundation's motivations in general, to its founder Richard Stallman's philosophy and the process by which the foundation and its top lawyer, Eben Moglen, are updating the GPL.
Torvalds said in a Groklaw legal discussion posting, "The reason for the GPL as far as the FSF is concerned was never 'fairness.' It was all about a higher calling, and about something that the FSF thinks is much bigger -- 'freedom.' I disagree. I think that 'freedom' is fine, but we're not exactly talking about slavery here. Trying to make it look like we're the Abraham Lincoln of our generation just makes us look stupid and stuck up. I'd much rather talk about 'fairness' and about issues like just being a much better process for generating better code, and having fun while doing so."
Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard, which sells its servers loaded with Linux and is involved in the revision of GPL, wants changes in GPLv3 with regard to patents. Vice president of HP's open source and Linux organization Christine Martino said in a statement that the company hoped that the second draft would clarify the patent provision -- to ease concern that mere distribution of a single copy of GPL-licensed software might have significant adverse intellectual property impact on a company. "Unfortunately, the concern lingers in draft 2."
Martino, however, says the DRM section is drafted better.
The general public licence is the most prolific open source licence and among things is chosen to govern the Linux kernel. The initial GPL3 draft prohibited the use of any DRM technology in open source technology. The current proposal has watered down the DRM provisions and is now only seeking to ensure that developers can access and modify GPL licensed software.
The foundation said in a statement that the clarified DRM section preserves the spirit of the original GPL, which forbids adding additional unfree restrictions to free software.
