In a recent interview, Timothy R. Butler talks to Richard M. Stallman about several topics including DRM. Here is a sample from the interview.
In September of 1983, a computer programmer working in the Massachusetts Institute for Technology AI Lab announced a plan that was the antithesis of the proprietary software concept that had come to dominate the industry. The plan detailed the creation of a UNIX replacement that would be entirely free, not as in the cost of the product, but as in freedom. That announcement would eventually catapult its author, Richard M. Stallman, into someone known and respected around the world and, perhaps more amazingly, a person that companies such as Apple and Netscape would alter their plans because of.
TRB: Awhile back Linus Torvalds said he wasn’t really opposed to DRM technology being integrated into GNU/Linux and suggested that the GPL didn’t forbid such.
RMS: The GNU GPL does not forbid DRM features as such, and it clearly has no effect on DRM in application programs that run on GNU/Linux, because application programs are not legally required to be GPL’d or even to be free software. But the GPL may put some limits on some of the changes in Linux (the kernel) that would be needed to include DRM support in Linux itself.
TRB: What does the FSF think about DRM — especially for data such as e-books, articles, music, and so forth?
RMS: DRM is, in itself, an offense against the users’ freedom. Secondarily it poses a danger to free software–the danger that free software will be entirely forbidden for important jobs such as reading a DVD or an e-book. So we are firmly against it on principle.
TRB: A few years ago, when Microsoft first really started to publically criticize the Free Software and Open Source communities through Craig Mundie, you signed on to a letter along with Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds, among others, defending Free Software and Open Source. It seems this kind of unity among the luminaries of the community is somewhat rare.
RMS: The Free Software Movement and the Open Source Movement are part of a single community but we disagree on the fundamental issues. In the Free Software Movement, our goal is to be free to live an ethical life where we can cooperate with other people. We appeal to these ethical and political values as well as to practical benefits.
Raymond and Torvalds support the Open Source Movement. They denounce the Free Software Movement’s ideals and values. Torvalds calls himself “apolitical” and doesn’t really advocate much. Raymond cites only practical professional values, such as developing powerful, reliable software, as the reasons for what he advocates. Those are the same goals that Microsoft claims it is going to achieve; the Open Source movement disagrees with Microsoft only in regard to how to best achieve the goals. At this basic level, we in the Free Software Movement disagrees with both of them.
The practical work of Open Source developers overlaps with ours, so we can and do work with them on practical projects. Taking a joint stand with them is sometimes a useful thing to do, but the difficulty is in the precise wording. If the statement refers to freedom as a value in itself, Open Source supporters might reject it. If it doesn’t, then the Free Software Movement’s philosophy is absent, and that could lead readers others to think we share the views of the Open Source Movement’s, so we might reject it. Walking the line between these two problems is tricky.
Related Posts
- Linux kernel reports are pure spin
- Microsoft memo to staff: Clobber Linux
- Microsoft makes claim on Linux code
- Linux calling: Are cell phones ready?
- IBM Investing In Linux
Loading ...
