Article explaining tivoisation

[Xavi Drudis Ferran]

I read the thread, then wrote this, then read the original article,
then read parts of the thread again, and I'm all messed up. I no longer know
who says what, so take any reference to persons here with a grain of salt:

>
> Alex Hudson <home at alexhudson.com> writes:
>> Keys will be necessary if the *hardware manufacturer* has arranged for
them to be necessary.
>
> Ok, I think I see your point now.
>

I think Alex's point is not about license provisions, but about
how the situation is explained in an article by Greg.

> But how would someone do that port without having been in collusion with
the
> person in control of the tivoisation?

Imaginary scneario. Somebody makes some kind of computer (like a game
console) and sells it in retail.

As you buy it in the shop you can only play games signed by the
manufacturer
or its partners. But if you pay a subscription fee to the manufacturer 
you get the chance to play any software on the console, only in your
console. The same software will work in another console that has its own
subscription fee payed but not in general on all consoles.

People who pay the subscription free can develop and exchange software
between them but the software is not free since recipients can not give
them to random people with the freedoms the manufacter took away (or
looking it another way the consoles would not be owned but just rented by
their, er... "owners"?). In any case would GPL3 prevent
subscribers to exchange software in that scenario. Seems it should. You
may or may not consider that subscription collusion with the manufacturer
but it's possibly not something that I would describe as being
manufacter's friend.

It could even contaminate genral free software. Guess one of the
subscribers ports a fre eprogram to the console. Then the program is free
and runs on non-tivoised computers but it additionally runs in computers
that don't obey their owners (because they don't pay subscription). If ht
GPL3 prevents this, then it menas the proting patches can't be applied to
GPL3d soft and
the console gets less software for subscribers, so you are slighly
damaging the network value of the console, which is likely what you want.

But I'm a bit confused right now. Does this make any sense ?


> So is it any different if Tivo writes the software or if Tivo colludes with
> a third-party for the software to be written?
>

No, yet there are scenarios not covered by the explanation, I guess.

>
> The only case where collusion with the tivoiser wouldn't be necessary is if
> the port was done either with an emulator or based purely on
> documentation.
>
> Why would someone do that if their software would never run?  And should we
> care about software which isn't intended to be run anywhere?

I don't know when or where or how that imaginary scheme would work, but I
believe it could be make to work with current technology (for internet
conencted devices, that is). It's like subscription TV but with executiong
privileges isntead of just content delivery. I haven't thought about it
though (I hope it doesn't work but I fear it does). I also don't know
whether that can make any economic sense for someone or whether that has
already been tried.

> And if the port developer intended their software to be authorised in
the
> future by the tivoiser, in which case users would have no more freedom than
> they do with Tivos today, then that's not something GPL should
> accommodate.
>

But the GPL not accomodating it does not mean it should implicitly being
ruled out from an explanation.

>
> As far as I can see, all outcomes lead to either the developer working with
> the tivoiser and the user's freedoms being a dud (in which case my
characterisation is ok), or the software never running on the tivoised
device (a case that I think we can ignore).
>

In a way yes. In another way, the "developer working with the tivoiser"
may take so many forms... You probably want to exclude those developers
from free software in order to devalue the hardware offering but not
precisely because they are in collusion wiht the manufacturer, they can
just be in an environment that makes indepndently profitable for both of
them to play that game... Or I'm nuts, which is likely.