On Jun 16, 2007, Daniel Hazelton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't see how TiVO has done this. They have placed no restrictions on > *modification* at all. What they have done is placed a restriction on > *REPLACEMENT* of the program.
Technicality. In order for the software to remain free (which is what the GPL is all about), the user must not be stopped from adapting the software to suit his needs and running it for any purpose. TiVo places restrictions on it. It's really this simple. And then, TiVo doesn't really prohibit replacement. You can replace it as much as you like; just not as conveniently as TiVo can replace it. And then, if you do, it won't run, because it's not signed with a key that they omit from the source code. And they do this in order to prevent the user from changing the behavior of the Free Software that they use, while they keep this ability to themselves. If these are not restrictions on the freedoms that the GPL is designed to protect to ensure that Free Software remains Free for all its users, I don't know what is. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED], gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist [EMAIL PROTECTED], gnu.org} - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
