Article explaining tivoisation

[simo]

On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 14:25 +0000, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-12-19 at 13:57 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
> > Alex Hudson <home at alexhudson.com> writes:
> > > the "Tivoisation" clause can affect those people just distributing
> > > software
> > 
> > Just distributing is never enough to make that clause kick in.  The clause
> > adds a requirement if some keys are necessary in order to install/modify/run
> > the software.  Keys will only ever be necessary if you have arranged with
> > the hardware manufacturer for them to be necessary.
> 
> Keys will be necessary if the *hardware manufacturer* has arranged for
> them to be necessary. That's different to "this clause only covers
> hardware manufacturers", which is incorrect, and is also different to
> "if you have arranged with the hardware manufacturer for them to be
> necessary", which implies you asked the manufacturer to make that so.
> 
> The obvious example is someone porting a free software game to a
> proprietary console (e.g., with XNA Game Studio Express), or similar.

Does this means the free software game can't be distributed with the
necessary tool to generate the key so that it works ?

> The hardware can be locked without the software author being in
> collusion with the hardware manufacturer: there are many popular pieces
> of hardware which are so locked. 

This is one of the problems indeed.

> There are also examples of operating systems with similar locks and/or
> safety belts. For example, writing a device driver for Windows - it will
> whine if the driver isn't signed. Ditto browser plugins, in some cases.

But they will work. I don;t thinking whining is a problem. It would be a
problem if it were not working, but then a I suspect a Windows driver
can't be released as GPL software anyway so I don't think it is a big
problem :)

> I'm not saying that the clause isn't useful; I'm just pointing out your
> characterisation of it affecting only hardware manufacturers or friends
> of hardware manufacturers isn't particularly accurate. It's about the
> means of distribution.

No, it is about the environment it is built for, and the environment is
controlled by the HW Vendor or the OS vendor, and in some cases it could
be a software vendor if we are speaking of something like virtual
machines.

The distribution itself is not the key point unless we mean 2 different
things which may be.

Simo.