> From: Bas Wijnen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Tue, May 02, 2006 at 01:44:43PM -0700, C Y wrote: > > I should say I personally would not suggest that an OS prohibit > > any possibility of DRM, since I doubt my own ability to certify > > that there is no legimitate use for it, but that's just a personal > > opinion. There are an incredibly large number of uses for > > computers, and the search space for use cases is beyond easy > > determination. > > I agree that there may be legitimate cases, given the size of the > search space. However, we know there are harmful cases, and > currently we haven't seen any legitimate cases that are big enough > to support in a general-purpose operating system. This means that > on the short term, the only good effect of implementing such a > feature is that it might speed up research and a legitimate case may > be found sooner. On the other hand, it is certainly harmful to > implement it. For that reason, I think it is a very bad idea to > implement DRM in the system if we can at all avoid it.
I'm a bit hesitant to propose this scenario since it has a "doomsday" quality to it, but I think it should at a minimum be considered and dismissed: The USA is one of the major centers for computer usage and research (disclaimer - I'm in the US). Let's suppose that, in spite of efforts to oppose it, a law is passed in the US which has the effect of requiring all tools capable of digital manipulation of data to support effective DRM measures. In this scenario, if free software isn't outlawed outright, it will find itself in a situation where the hardware itself will refuse to run any OS which is unable to guarantee protection. If GNU HURD is designed to prohibit any possibility of effective DRM, this would seem to mean that there will be some kind of fundamental incompatibility between GNU HURD and US law. DRM in such a scenario becomes not a semi-useful-maybe-harmful feature but a basic requirement under the law. What worries me the most is that if HURD fundamentally cannot support DRM in a technical sense it may find itself in the same legal position in the US as software license cracks and other such programs. DRM in the sense that it is being proposed in the US seems to be largely a social issue, and if the decision is made by society to support DRM what happens? I suppose the USA could become a Free-Software-free (or at least HURD free) zone, but that would be a rather unfortunate outcome. I appreciate the GNU foundation's taking strong stances on such issues, but to me I guess this is much more of a social issue than a technical one. Look at the current "it is illegal to circumvent a copy protection measure" nonsense in the US. In my view, if DRM is not a social issue then there is no harm in the technical capability being implicit in the OS design - in a few cases it might be useful. If it IS a social issue precluding its implementation in the OS design will convince no one, and in more gloomy scenarios it means the HURD will be cut off from participation in future computational deployments. Dr. Shapiro has done a tremendous amount of work on systems that promise to revolutionize the way we think about things like reliability and security (I particularly like the idea of formal verification and certification) and my bias is to support the most robust, advanced designs possible. Eliminating abilities based on social issues is not worth sacrificing design ideas IMHO - you never know when you might need some ability, and the potential to abuse any tool exists so long as the will to abuse it does. Look at it this way - if most of the situations where one wants to run a car at 100 miles per hour on the highway are either very rare or illegal, does that mean we should build cars that can only drive at a maximum of 65mph? Personally I prefer to know that my car CAN do 100+, even if I personally never need to do it and the ability is dangerous when misused. Anyway. Opinions on this matter from the quasi-informed are a dime a dozen, so I apologize if I strayed too far off topic. The meat of my concern is "can HURD survive in the US if DRM becomes mandated, and is it a problem if it can't?" Cheers, CY __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ L4-hurd mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/l4-hurd
