digital rights

I resist the urge to title this entry as "The monster speaks". Knowing the history of RIAA as of late and their actions, you can barely get yourself to even read what its president has to say. Should you need a reminder just think of all the not-so-rich families which have been sued over their heads for supposed copyright infringement even without proper evidence and a transparent process. And indeed, if you do get yourself to read what RIAA's Cary Sherman has to say you'll see an attempt to twist the universally accepted meaning of fair use into something acceptable only to the RIAA conglomerate and attacking those who campaign for Digital Freedom. Indeed, he tries to downplay the motivations and intents of CEA (Consumer Electronics Association), the initiator of the Digital Freedom campaign, to something as supposedly "selfish" as exploiting the topic of consumer rights in order to make money.

It is almost a common knowledge that Bill Gates had a certain vision when he co-founded Microsoft: a computer in every home that can be easily operated. Pity that this vision seemed to have had a hidden implication that every of these computers would have to run Microsoft's operating system. Nevertheless, the vision of widespread and pretty much ubiquitous digital empowerment is largely coming true.

As suspected, the criticizing position statement by Linux kernel developers on GPLv3 which calls for the termination of the GPLv3 process is stirring the pot. Free Software foundation has issued a response claiming that the recent discussion brought some misleading information and tried to address and clarify it. Soon after Linus Torvalds released a statement of his own, this time taking a more positive approach by praising GPLv2 with an attitude of "not caring so much about why the GPLv3 is worse, but a much more positive 'Why the GPLv2 is _better_".

I would have to applaud this attempt at putting a positive spin on the discussion. At the very least it disperses a view that could potentially develop among outsiders not knowing too much about GPL and not involved in the discussion, that when questioning GPLv3, it is whole GPL (no matter the version) which is being brought in question.