[KLUG Advocacy] Re: [KLUG Members] DRM in every Samsung machine

[Jamie McCarthy]

adam@morrison-ind.com (Adam Williams) writes:

> "I want to make it clear that DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!"
> --Linus Torvalds.

That quote was one where Linus came out and said that in his
opinion, it was not a problem that someone can sign kernel images.

It's important to realize what that means.  What we're talking about
are computer systems in which the BIOS, or some other pre-boot
mechanism, will only allow an operating system to be bootstrapped if
the bootstrapper has been cryptographically signed by a recognized
authority.

For example, let me pick on Hewlett-Packard for no good reason.

HP could manufacture a computer that will only boot using their own
boot loader.  Let's make one up, call it "HPboot" just so it has a
name.  When the computer starts up, it loads HPboot from the hard
drive, verifies that it has not been altered from the same HPboot
code that Hewlett-Packard distributed, and only then executes it.

HP can then write HPboot such that it will only give the user a
choice of running operating systems on the disk which have also been
cryptographically signed by HP.  For example, HP would sign the
Microsoft Windows kernel, so HPboot knows it can start that up.  And
HP would sign its own version of the Linux kernel, or maybe a couple
of versions, known to work on its DRM-enabled hardware.  So HPboot
would run those Linux kernels as well.

Hewlett-Packard would also follow all the rules of the GPL -- since
they customized the kernel to work with their DRM hardware, HP would
release the source.  And the source that they released would be the
same source they compiled into a kernel image and signed.

The problem is that you and I can't do anything useful with that
source on any HP machine.  If we change even one line of that code
and want to recompile our own kernel image, that kernel image will
not be signed and won't boot on any HP machine.

Don't think you'll run User Mode Linux either -- HP's custom kernels
will have custom patches to prevent UML or any similar software from
running.  All perfectly legal since they will distribute the source
for those patches too.

In other words, you still have all the same freedoms under the GPL
for your software that you had before, it's just that you cannot
make _any_ use of those software freedoms on HP hardware.

Now imagine that every vendor is doing roughly that.

    --> We would still have all our GPL software freedoms...
    and no hardware to take advantage of them on. <--

This is the situation that Richard Stallman finds unbearable and
Linus Torvalds is "perfectly ok with."  Linus is just an engineer.
He doesn't care much about any of this.  (Yet.)

And this is not some weird fantasy;  this is _precisely_ what the
media giants want to happen.  These companies put down a hundred
million dollars on a _single bet_ every time they make a movie.
When every house in America has broadband and big-screen TVs and
is watching "The Passion of The Christ II" three weeks before it's
in the theater, oh yeah, don't you think they'll want those
betting odds tipped a little more in their favor?

When Sony, Viacom, AOL-Time Warner, Disney, and Fox all have a
common goal, it is risky to bet against it happening.  Remember,
they got the DMCA passed 99-1 in the Senate without even
breaking a sweat.

And that's just what they can do with the law;  think what they can
do with the media they own.  These guys are used to being
opinionmakers.  If they really want to play hardball -- and they
will -- they can unleash a media blitz that might make _me_ think
DRM isn't such a bad idea!

DRM is perfectly OK with Linux.  The question is whether Linux
users, who twenty years from now still want to be using
_computers_ and not glorified Gameboys, are OK with DRM.
-- 
  Jamie McCarthy
 http://mccarthy.vg/
  jamie@mccarthy.vg