[kde-community] Request to join the Kde incubator for GCompris

[Kevin Krammer]

On Friday, 2014-02-14, 13:02:31, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> Hi Aaron,
> 
> On Fri, 14 Feb 2014 09:17:05 +0100
> 
> "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
> > On Friday, February 14, 2014 04:24:12 Shlomi Fish wrote:

> > > The VideoLAN / VLC project took the opposite approach and after being
> > > unhappy with the GPLv3, decided to convert all their GPLv2 code into
> > > LGPLv2.
> > 
> > I can name two likely reasons: DRM and tivoization clauses.
> > 
> > Indeed, there is no one-size-fits-all license.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> BTW, regarding the so-called "Tivoisation", from what I recall reading on
> http://zgp.org/pipermail/linux-elitists/ , the whole story was that Tivo
> contacted the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation (FSF)
> asking whether the practise of signing the kernel was allowed by the GPLv2.
> After consulting their lawyers, the FSF replied "Yes , it's OK, thanks for
> asking.". Then after Tivo became popular, this practice was deemed
> non-desireable and Richard Stallman nicknamed it "Tiovization" after Tivo
> despite the fact that earlier the FSF told Tivo that it was acceptable.

I doubt that the FSF has any problem with cryptography being used to protect 
users from software from untrusted sources so I doubt that they do not 
consider signing acceptable.

The problem with Tivo, as far as I understand, is not them signing their 
binaries and checking that signature before execution.
The problem is that Tivo does not provide an adequate mechanism to register 
new keys. Which of course denies the user at least one of the four core 
principles of Free Software.

I doubt that Tivo asked the FSF whether withholding one of the Four Freedoms 
would be OK and the FSF said yes. I doubt they would even need to ask their 
legal counsels.

Cheers,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer
KDE user support, developer mentoring
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