GPLv3: What the Hackers Said

> Would you pay good money to own a car that stopped working as soon as you changed the tyres?

More like the following:

This car comes with a custom set of tires designed to provide a far smoother ride than that of any other car. Changing tires is allowed, but doing so will remove this feature.

That's a rough equivilant to the custom services Tivo offers. They probably have a right to deny those services to those who modify the box.

"Changing tires is allowed, but doing so will remove this feature" No, following the tivo analogy, changing the tyres will stop. the. car.

If you modify any part of the tivo software, and be it the smallest one-line change, the tivo stops working. Whether the tivo has some unique special feature or not is irrelevant.

incinerator -

What if you replace the bios?

So what, exactly, are they trying to prevent in the first place? I mean, if I were to try to modify my cable service on my end to get more channels than I've paid for, Time-Warner ain't gonna be none to happy about that. If that's what Tivo is trying to prevent, their mechanism might be understandable. If the box is leased, it's their box, not mine, and I don't have the same rights as if I own it. If all they're doing is preventing me from improving the recording features or something, then I don't understand at all, and they won't get my business.

This where I am a bit concerned for our community. Do we even understand what the hell we're arguing about?

dc -

You ask a great question.

An explanation would be something, at least.

For example, if it were something like, "Our lawyers warned us that we were in serious dangers of getting our butts sued into oblivion if we didn't do something to make sure that our product was used in the intended manner and not as a tool for piracy" or some such thing, at least I could understand. As it is, I wonder if it isn't more like ("Well gee, if you guys can replace the OS, how can we control features that we'd like to make available but only at an extra cost?"

I am now in contact with Tivo, via their PR guy, Jeff Weir. I'll come back when I have more to go on. I take it as an omen that he has referred me in the interim to Daniel Lyons' articles at Forbes. However, there was one link I found that has an interesting-looking interview with Torvalds on Tivo. I'm still researching this, though, and would like to present something a bit more balanced than what Lyons had to say recently. Is he related to Titch?

Quoting:Would you pay good money to own a car that stopped working as soon as you changed the tyres?

No. And that is exactly my point.

If you are told, up front, that changing the tires will stop the car from working, and you do so anyway, where is the room to complain?

I am looking forward greatly to the Tivo answer, DC. Bravo for your diving into the question.

> So what, exactly, are they trying to prevent in the first place?

I believe that has changed over time, and I'm not sure what the current status is. I think in the beginning they were simply trying to prevent unauthorized duplication of the recorded programs (to prevent law suits, as noted above). Then I believe they added blocking access to their paid services for modified systems. It may be that now they're trying to prevent any modifications at all. Hopefully Tivo will be able to answer your questions and let us know what they currently do and do not allow. I agree that if they want to control access to their services, that's their right, but the box belongs to you, and you should be able to modify it.

> Bravo for your diving into the question.

It has taken me a while to give it the attention it deserves, but then I have a lot on my plate. But I'm just watching, and it seems like so many really don't grasp what the bottom line is. That makes it impossible to debate an issue - well at least with any reasonable outcome. My brother and I would argue with a fencepost. That's fine, but we still need to understand the issues we're arguing about.

Daniel Lyons is too busy mischaracterizing Stallman and drawing attention away from the real issues to provide us any reasonable clues. Torvalds has given some clues, but I want to go over his comments a little more as well. And, as always, it is best to go straight to the source. Which journalist has presented any information at all based on Tivo's position? We keep hearing from RMS and Torvalds, Torvalds and the kernel hackers, Torvalds and Joe Blow on the street who can't even afford a Tivo to begin with.

jdixon: I agree wholeheartedly with you. You might be surprised what Linus said about that. Stay tuned!

> Joe Blow on the street who can't even afford a Tivo to begin with.

Well, I can Identify with that one ;-)

I started this whole thing with a pretty open mind, but the more I hear, the more I believe that Torvalds and the kernel hackers are the only one's presenting any factual reality. Sorry Don, but it's getting harder and harder for me to separate any 'potential' value in GPLv3 from the absolutest spin by RMS and the FSF.

What bothers me is that some of the kernel hackers keep sniping at Stallman. If it's not about him, then quit sniping at him. They don't go as far as Lyons, to be sure. You should really read that Lyons piece about the Acolytes. Lyons was pure mean - and ignored a few well-known facts.

Nick Petreley had some interesting comments, but even he somehow wound up getting sidetracked with people calling into question his statements about the hardware. Maybe he was making a point, but either he didn't do a good job, or he missed what people like jdixon have said.

There may be valid reasons why Tivo did what they did. That is what I want to find out. Even then, there is usually more than one way to skin a cat.

Quoting:There may be valid reasons why Tivo did what they did. That is what I want to find out. Even then, there is usually more than one way to skin a cat.

Exactly, There are reasons and there is more than one way to find out. I wish you luck, Seriously. I hope you get the answers to the questions that for some reason have not been asked yet.

All this crap about Tivo. It would appear that Tivo is selling (well actually renting) you a tiered service. As such, I'm not even sure you have the right to mod their box, and, most of this 'I can do what I want with my equipment' line is garbage anyway.

I'd be willing to bet that even if could make them not use GPLv3 licensed software, they'll just move the encoding to hardware. Or Ignore it all and release under GPLv2, or just ignore the Linux community altogether.

What the heck do Tivo users expect when they sign up for an obviously limited service? If you don't agree with the terms of service, then just don't use it.

The Tivo 'issue' amounts to FSF FUD...

I would say the Tivo issue is, in the eyes of the FSF - or at least RMS - The Xerox Strikes Back! It not FUD; it's a nightmare. Anyway, we'll see.

I wouldn't call it FUD at all, but a genuine concern, which we've all addressed before- if the hardware is locked, what good is free software?

I too am tired of the sniping at RMS and the FSF. It's childish.

Some rather obvious points:

-if it's a rented box, oh well, too bad for you. It's not yours. -if you own it, that gives you more rights

Out of several hundred kernel devs, we're only hearing from a very small number- the usual ones. How representative are they? What about other devs who write non-kernel GPL software? More and more this looks like a continuation of an old grudge match.

I do believe we can all agree on one thing: Dan Lyons is a forked-tongue poopyhead.

>Dan Lyons is a forked-tongue poopyhead.

Or, as the late Lloyd Bentson might have said, "Sir, I knew John Kennedy, and you are a forked-tongue poopyhead."

Quoting:The Tivo 'issue' amounts to FSF FUD...

At least half of it is which is why I hope Don gets his way, so to speak. ;-)

"...is a forked-tongue poopyhead."

Prepare to be blatantly plagerized.

h

Indeed, once you buy the box it's yours. This is why I believe the true motivation of Tivo to "secure" the system was to absolve themselves as much as possible of responsibility for piracy, and to defend their subscription payed services from being accessed by hacked systems.

Which suggests to me that the real answer is to hack the ROM, since it is YOUR ROM after all, you bought it, just like people hack the ROM of Linksys routers to run commodity Linux.

What I meant is, "it's their box" to build as they see fit. And it is your money to spend as you see fit. A fair trade.

> Which suggests to me that the real answer is to hack the ROM...

That called a modchip in modern parlance (at least with respect to the gaming consoles), and the hardware companies are doing their very best to have it outlawed. I don't know to what extent they've succeeded, but googling modchip lawsuit might prove instructive.