Karl Kurbjun wrote: > Are the DRM clauses still in the GPLv3? I personally do not like DRM and > I would rather it have never come about, but in the off chance that a > company really decided that they liked the project and wanted to use it > as their primary firmware, what would those clauses mean for us? Would a > company, for example Sansa, be able to use our code if they wanted to > have Rhapsody compatibility (assuming it was open source)?
I'm not sure that the DRM clauses in GPLv3 would be a problem (IANAL) however, I would point out that, should a situation such as this arise, we do have the option of licensing it to them under a different license (so long as all copyright holders agree). Depending on the circumstances, this is something that we might want to do for other reasons anyway. (In my earlier message I mentioned that a copyright holding group wasn't necessary so long as we say "GPLv3 or later" and only release under the GPL. Obviously, using a different license changes that; this might be a good argument for having a copyright holding group afterall.) Another possibility is that we could include an exception in our license. GPLv3 allows things like this, however someone would need to research what the capabilities/limitations are. For my part, I am strongly against "TiVo-ization" and I believe that if the GPLv3 DRM provisions prevent someone from taking our code and "TiVo-izing" it without our knowledge or input, then I don't think that's a bad thing. If a company wanted to do something along these lines, I would prefer that they negotiate with us over whatever issues prevent them from working with the GPL. Nevertheless, I don't have a big stake in this (legally) and I'm willing to go along with whatever the group decides. In any case, I guess this is all theoretical until someone actually comes a-knocking. ~ray
