On Jun 18, 2007, Anders Larsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:54:56 -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote: >> I don't know any law that requires tivoization.
> Not exactly laws, but pretty close: > Credit-card payment terminals are subject to strict security > certification, where it has to be ensured that > a) the user cannot tinker with the device without rendering it unusable > for its original purpose (electronic payments), and I think GPLv3 has that covered: Network access may be denied when the modification itself materially and adversely affects the operation of the network or violates the rules and protocols for communication across the network. I've been sufficiently annoyed by credit card transactions that cannot be completed for network-down reasons that I believe such devices depend on network access to perform the original purpose, and even though IANAL I think that cutting off network access in case the software no longer complies with the regulations is permitted by the license. > b) the manufacturer is able to update the device _in_ _the_ _field_. If the above is not enough, you could always use ROM. Sure, if you can replace the ROM, so can the user, and this just goes to show how short-sighted the alleged prohibitions on user tinkering with the software are. Sure, it would be more costly, but it's not like the law (or the agreements in place) *mandate* tivoization. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED], gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist [EMAIL PROTECTED], gnu.org} - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/