Text 10761, 88 rader
Skriven 2006-04-16 09:09:30 av Mike '/m' (1:379/45)
Ärende: Lessig, Stallman on 'Open Source' DRM
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From: Mike '/m' <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.theregister.com/2006/04/15/lessig_stallman_drm/

===
When Sun trumpeted its 'open source DRM' last month, no one at first noticed an
unusual name amongst the canned quotes. Lending his support to the rights
enforcement technology was Free Software Foundation, Electronic Frontier
Foundation board member, and Software Freedom Law Center director, Professor
Lawrence Lessig. A name usually associated with the unrestricted exchange of
digital media.

Debian activist and copyright campaigner Benjamin Mako Hill noticed, and
thought this was odd. "The fact that the software is 'open source' is hardly
good enough," he wrote, "if the purpose of the software is to take away users'
freedom - in precisely the way that DRM does."

Was DRM less bad because it was 'open source'? Professor Lessig tells us that
he should have reviewed the Sun Microsystems press release before it went out.
It doesn't fully reflect his position, he says, and he's emphatic that this
blessing doesn't constitute an endorsement.

"Rockstars and newspapers endorse things," he told us by email. "I don't."

Richard M Stallman, who founded the Free Software movement and devised the
original GNU public license, diplomatically didn't dwell on the support Lessig
gave Sun's DRM.

"Anyone can mis-speak," he said. "But I hope people can learn from this."

He warns that, if DRM is open source, it might actually be worse than
proprietary DRM, and he issued a rallying cry for free software campaigners
that DRM is incompatible with freedom.

(How 'open source' Sun's DRM really is questionable, says Mako, since it allows
proprietary implementations - that's something Lessig may not have been aware
of at the time of the Sun press release.)

What follows, then, is excerpted from interviews with all three over the past
week. Unprompted, both Stallman and Lessig spent considerable time with us
discussing the wider context. Take away the need for DRM, they both point out,
and the discussion becomes moot. Both have differing views on how this can be
achieved, but it merits an article in itself, so we'll follow up with a Part
Two in the very near future. Stallman on freedom

As he so often does, Stallman began by drawing a sharp distinction between
"open source" and the free software movement. This is more than mere semantics,
as becomes apparent when he turns to DRM, because it's a distinction that
reflects very different philosophical and moral approaches to writing software.

"The values of the Free Software Movement are the freedom to cooperate, and the
freedom to have control over your own life. You should be free to control the
software in your computer, and you should be free to share it," he sums up.

"The weakness of the 'Open Source' approach, is that it has been designed as
another way to talk about the issues, one that cites only practical values. It
agrees with the conventional attitude that what matters about software is what
job it does, and how much money it costs. That's exactly the same attitude
Microsoft wants you to take."

"Both 'open source' and proprietary developers are saying that convenience
matters - but we're saying freedom and community matter more. We're not saying
convenience doesn't matter, but there's more than just having a reliable and
powerful program."

"I'm willing to undergo the tremendous inconvenience to create a free program
that's a replacement for a proprietary program. That's why we have the
GNU/Linux system, because a lot of people were prepared to make practical
sacrifices so we can have that freedom."

Now here's where this underpins the DRM discussion....
===



My fav quote:


"...Debian activist and copyright campaigner Benjamin Mako Hill noticed, and
thought this was odd. 'The fact that the software is 'open source' is hardly
good enough,' he wrote, 'if the purpose of the software is to take away users'
freedom - in precisely the way that DRM does.'..."

 /m

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