2 GPLv3 docs: DRM and Patents

[simo]

On Sat, 2006-05-06 at 07:27 +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> Bjoern Schiessle <schiessle at fsfe.org>
> > MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> > > Digital signature software like GnuPG might not be distributed
> > > as signed binaries under GPLv3 unless the archive signing key
> > > is included, by the looks of that, depending on what "unseal"
> > > means in court.  [...]
> > 
> > Why should a signing key have to be included? [...]
> 
> To unseal the signature block.  As posted, it depends what "unseal"
> means in court.

While I think this provision is fundamentally flawed (but in other
ways), it does not say at all that you need to distribute your keys to
verify the signatures, the signatures does not prevent you from running
the software in the same way it would if you had the key.

> > You can send your comments by email:
> > http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/email.html
> 
> Have you got that to work?  I didn't.

You didn't want to. And didn't either want to use the email based proxy
which is available too. But let's not repeat this annoying thread we
already went through it once.

> GPLv3 seems almost a case study in how not to run a
> consultation, with a some-browsers-denied comments system feeding
> corporation-heavy committees whose discussions are mostly secret
> and memberships only published belatedly.  It marginalises and
> disempowers regular hackers and encourages us to move away from
> using FSF licences for our work.

It is a way to get some work done and avoid annoying discussions on the
method instead of discussions on the substance. And again, and for the
Nth time, the committees does not have any authority on anything, they
are just knowledgeable people that helps the FSF sort out all the
comments and propose a summary. The FSF has all the power and will do
all the decisions. And they can, and do read all the comments alone too.
So it is basically a lot of gratis work for them.

Simo.