Torvalds says no to GPLv3

Stan Beer
Monday, 31 July 2006 16:32

Your IT - Home IT

The Finnish creator of the Linux operating system, Linus Torvalds, has lashed out the latest draft version of the general public license GPL, which governs the Linux kernel because of restrictions on the use of digital rights management (DRM) in systems.

The new version of GPL, GPLv3, initially sought to prohibit the use of DRM in free software systems governed by the license. However, a second draft claims to have eased the restriction but insists all applications used in DRM systems developed using software governed by GPLv3 must be available for developers to modify if they so wish.

According to Torvalds, GPLv3 reaches into places where it should not go. He believes GPLv3 wrongly interferes with the right of hardware manufacturers to design their hardware to work only with specific versions of an open source application, which is a key criterion of DRM systems.

Torvalds has rejected the new version of the GPL, saying that the Linux kernel will not move from GPLv2. He also criticised the process and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) which oversees the GPL, describing FSF policies as extremist.

It appears that the advent of DRM is going to be a catalyst for many raging arguments both in the open source and proprietary software spaces in coming years.