Piracy : It's illegal but we're big business so we'll make it legal

Analysts, legal eagles dissect new GPLv3 draft

ACT executive director Morgan Reed who said, "The newest draft of the GPLv3 is clearly designed to build unscalable walls between open source and proprietary software. The rest of the world has decided to make software more interoperable, but Stallman and the FSF are focused on ideology rather than the practical concerns of users."


Wishy washy , what are you talking about , specifically ? And whats wrong with ideology. If the makers of the item in question want to push an ideological point of view, well , it's their property what can I tell you ? Looks like they get to push.


"The new draft seeks to increase restrictions on the use of GPL software used in consumer products that employ technical means to prohibit further modification by consumers. In essence, the drafters are seeking to ensure that if businesses choose to employ GPL software in a device, the businesses cannot then technologically 'lock' that device up and prohibit users from further modifying it -- it seeks to guarantee that if a device uses GPL software the consumer will be permitted to 'pop open the hood and tinker with the engine.'"


Ah , embedded Linux. Now we have something to talk about.

So you take a copy of linux, put it in your TV tuner to run it, and sell copies all over the place. For a profit. But ... the guys who made linux in the first place had no intention of you making a profit. It's only supposed to be used for free. The makers of the device , of course, are worried that you will in fact "pop open the hood" and remove any payment restrictions so that people , in this case the TV scenario , get their TV for free. A valid restriction if it was your property. But it isn't.

Congradulations, Mr TV Company , you have just committed piracy. You've taken someone elses work and used it for something they disaprove of. And since you're a big business with lots of lawyers and stuff , you're gonna make it legal to do this.

And when the linux guys change the copy right (copy left as they like to call it) scheme to forbid this , you start crying foul ! This is interfering with your profits !

(edit)
One of the most interesting aspects of this situation is that the various Linux programmers who make this software seem to have no voice. Since they are giving it away for free, they have no money to pay for lawyers to fight this battle.

But then again , they do have the ability to stop writing code and giving it away. They do have the ability to change the "copy left" terms that they release it under, so that any new stuff they write comes under a more restrictive scheme to prevent such Business Piracy (thus is born the GPLv3, etc). There's not much room for argument here. You can whine and complain all you want, but in the end it's simply not your property.

If I was a Linux Programmer, and I saw my work that I intended to be given away for free, buried deep in somone's TV Tuner, with their brand name on it and everything , and not a hint that my stuff was even there, and they were making a nice profit off of it , how would I feel ?

Not supposed to be making profits off of linux. Sorry. Write your own control software for your TV box and quit being a Pirate.