From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261928AbTDXNnj (ORCPT ); Thu, 24 Apr 2003 09:43:39 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263658AbTDXNni (ORCPT ); Thu, 24 Apr 2003 09:43:38 -0400 Received: from watch.techsource.com ([209.208.48.130]:51628 "EHLO techsource.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261928AbTDXNnh (ORCPT ); Thu, 24 Apr 2003 09:43:37 -0400 Message-ID: <3EA7F0C6.8010907@techsource.com> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 10:12:22 -0400 From: Timothy Miller User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Downing, Thomas" CC: Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: Flame Linus to a crisp! References: <170EBA504C3AD511A3FE00508BB89A9201FD8E40@exnanycmbx4.ipc.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Downing, Thomas wrote: >IMHO the DRM issue is not one that will be settled in either the software >or hardware area, but in the legal one. > >[snip] > >So this leads me to a position I would have, without reflection, not taken; >while I despise the current subversion of fair use and first point of sale >undertaken by MPAA, RIAA, et al., I agree with what I understand Linus to >say - DRM yes or no should not be mandated by license. >- > > > I feel like I'm late into this discussion, but anyhow... Do we have any kind of agenda to spread Linux? I mean, it sure is spreading, eating into other markets, for instance Windows. But how interested are we in doing things specifically to accelerate that? One of the things that we could do to accelerate the adoption of Linux is to support DRM. Yes, we know it's evil, but if we are the ones developing it, at least we know what it is and is not doing and how it works. As much as I dislike Microsoft for its business practices, I still feel uneasy having illegal copies of their Office suite. So I use OpenOffice instead. Likewise, I prefer to use Linux because having a free copy of it is perfectly legal. And finally, although I do like the idea of being able to sample music before I buy it, I feel an attachment to artists I listen to, so I buy their CD's (despite the fact that it helps the RIAA). So the idea of having something which prevents me from illegally pirating something doesn't bother me so much. Whenever I have to do serious work, I either use an OSS tool, or I pay money for a piece of software so I can get support -- sometimes, I even pay for OSS stuff. The idea of a DRM system malfunctioning and preventing me from accessing my legally-licensed material DOES bother me very much, but I think only in the hands of people like us can it be done right, because we're the very ones who would suffer were it to break. In the end, of course, this is up to Linus, at least in terms of the mainline tree. Whatever his opinion might be, we're going to have to make a bullet-proof argument to officially go one way or the other on this.