Re: GPLv3 comedy unfolding -- "An idea to make everyone happy?"

[Alexander Terekhov]

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Comment 1621: An idea to make everyone happy?

Regarding the text: No Denying Users' Rights through Technical Measures.
In section: gpl3.drm.0.0
Submitted by: Fire on 2006-08-14 at 10:56 EDT
0 agree:
noted by Fire on 2006-08-14 at 10:56 EDT:

    I agree that Tivoization is a danger, but I also see legitimate
applications of DRM that this paragraph would needlessly ban (the Voting
Machine scenario, for instance). So I've got an idea that might just
satisfy everyone. Right along the lines of "provide source at no or
minimal cost", why not do something similar for hardware? Require that
anyone selling a DRM-crippled device also sell an equivalent version of
said device that either lacks DRM, or uses a published key, at the same
cost as the DRM-crippled device.

    So Tivo would have to sell "Tivo-A" that is DRM crippled and
"Tivo-B" that doesn't have DRM. If you want to tinker with it, you buy
the "Tivo-B". Additionally, someone who wants to make secure devices
like voting machines or systems to run physical security could sell both
"Tamper Resistant" and "Open" versions.

    Obviously, this would have to be turned into legal speak, but I
believe it would both prevent the Tivoization and still allow people to
create tamper-resistant devices when both the manufacturer and the
customer want it. 

noted by sepreece on 2006-08-15 at 09:49 EDT:

    Well, it doesn't help for the case of mobile phones and other
products that have to interact with an external service in a controlled
way. Cell phone manufacturers, for instance, cannot sell you a version
that you can modify unless that version doesn't have a radio (or, as
noted elsewhere, unless they can guarantee that the radio software is
trusted even in the presence of maliciously modified application
software around it)... 
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regards,
alexander.