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One of the very few genuinely bad takes Linus had. Bootloader unlocking should be a basic consumer right, and if Linux went GPLv3, it would be closer to realit

One of the very few genuinely bad takes Linus had. Bootloader unlocking should be a basic consumer right, and if Linux went GPLv3, it would be closer to reality.

blell 8mo ago
It’s not Linus Torvalds’ duty to make bootloader unlocking a reality.
- ACCount37 8mo ago
  It isn't. But he could have contributed massively to it, and hasn't, and I can and will hold it against him.
  - ivell 8mo ago
    There will always be more ways for companies to extract value without contributing. Linus would have to continuously upgrade licenses from GPLV2 to V3 to Affero and so on. It is not really practical. What Linus has contributed is already huge. We can't put all the burden of making the world right on him.
  - 627467 8mo ago
    Like the industry wouldn't adapt to a more hostile license from linux? Huawei built their own OS, google has fuschia (and g* knows what else) Would it be better if apple and google flipped the switch and made all future devices 100% closed sourced?
    - ACCount37 8mo ago
      The likes of Microsoft, Apple, Sony and Nintendo already run kernels with less open licenses than Linux on their own devices. Others decided that maintaining their own kernel is too much. So, what would Linux being more open really have changed?
kube-system 8mo ago
I think expecting software licenses to enforce your rights outside of the realm of software is a pretty bad take. I think Linus's take is quite solid: "I give you my source code, you give me your changes back, and we're even". There are a lot of us who don't think that FOSS should be weaponized as a poison pill to enact the authors worldview on topics outside of the realm of software alone. If it should be a consumer right, why limit it only to devices certain types of software? Why not consumer protection law that applies to all devices? I think software licenses are the wrong tool for this problem. There's a lot of crazy crayon licenses out there that try to fix the whole world by tacking on a whole lot of restrictions to their software licenses, prohibiting use for a long list of reasons... to me it sounds like a bunch of newspeak, as if "more restrictions = more freedom"
- ACCount37 8mo ago
  Is being able to replace software on the devices I own not in "the realm of software" somehow? "Sure, you can have the sources, you just can't use them on your own devices because the vendor that shipped it has decided to bar you from doing that with a 2048-bit RSA key" just feels like GPL was upheld in letter, but not in spirit.
  - kube-system 8mo ago
    Yeah, it is -- you're asking for restrictions on pieces of hardware unrelated to the original software other than the fact that someone decided to install it on there. How would you feel if a piece of hardware came with a license prohibiting software developers from using encryption to secure their systems? The root of the issue here is that phone hardware landscape is effectively a duopoly. It is an antitrust issue. Trying to use software licenses to do this 1) won't be effective because the duopoly will never use them, and 2) is like going around your ass to get to your elbow. Even if it did work it wouldn't get to the root of the issue. The law needs to fix the fact that almost all phones on the planet are controlled either directly or indirectly by two companies.
    - fph 8mo ago

One of the very few genuinely bad takes Linus had. Bootloader unlocking should be a basic consumer right, and if Linux went GPLv3, it would be closer to reality.

blell 8mo ago

It’s not Linus Torvalds’ duty to make bootloader unlocking a reality.

ACCount37 8mo ago
It isn't. But he could have contributed massively to it, and hasn't, and I can and will hold it against him.
- ivell 8mo ago
  There will always be more ways for companies to extract value without contributing. Linus would have to continuously upgrade licenses from GPLV2 to V3 to Affero and so on. It is not really practical. What Linus has contributed is already huge. We can't put all the burden of making the world right on him.
- 627467 8mo ago
  Like the industry wouldn't adapt to a more hostile license from linux? Huawei built their own OS, google has fuschia (and g* knows what else) Would it be better if apple and google flipped the switch and made all future devices 100% closed sourced?
  - ACCount37 8mo ago
    The likes of Microsoft, Apple, Sony and Nintendo already run kernels with less open licenses than Linux on their own devices. Others decided that maintaining their own kernel is too much. So, what would Linux being more open really have changed?

kube-system 8mo ago

I think expecting software licenses to enforce your rights outside of the realm of software is a pretty bad take. I think Linus's take is quite solid: "I give you my source code, you give me your changes back, and we're even". There are a lot of us who don't think that FOSS should be weaponized as a poison pill to enact the authors worldview on topics outside of the realm of software alone. If it should be a consumer right, why limit it only to devices certain types of software? Why not consumer protection law that applies to all devices? I think software licenses are the wrong tool for this problem. There's a lot of crazy crayon licenses out there that try to fix the whole world by tacking on a whole lot of restrictions to their software licenses, prohibiting use for a long list of reasons... to me it sounds like a bunch of newspeak, as if "more restrictions = more freedom"

ACCount37 8mo ago
Is being able to replace software on the devices I own not in "the realm of software" somehow? "Sure, you can have the sources, you just can't use them on your own devices because the vendor that shipped it has decided to bar you from doing that with a 2048-bit RSA key" just feels like GPL was upheld in letter, but not in spirit.
- kube-system 8mo ago
  Yeah, it is -- you're asking for restrictions on pieces of hardware unrelated to the original software other than the fact that someone decided to install it on there. How would you feel if a piece of hardware came with a license prohibiting software developers from using encryption to secure their systems? The root of the issue here is that phone hardware landscape is effectively a duopoly. It is an antitrust issue. Trying to use software licenses to do this 1) won't be effective because the duopoly will never use them, and 2) is like going around your ass to get to your elbow. Even if it did work it wouldn't get to the root of the issue. The law needs to fix the fact that almost all phones on the planet are controlled either directly or indirectly by two companies.
  - fph 8mo ago