In alt.folklore.computers John Levine <
johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
According to Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid>:
In short, if a corporation is arguing that GPLv3 is a reason not to use >>software or newer versions under that license, you probably should steer >>clear of that corporation, that means either they don't intend to honor
the freedoms they need to honor in strong copyleft, or that they're
trying to reserve the right of defeating these freedoms with >>patent-wrangling.
Or is there something else I've forgotten about?
Yes.
Apple signs the software they distribute. As I read the GPLv3, if they
ever signed a piece of GPLv3 software, they'd be required to sign
every modified version of it, no matter how full of malware it was.
That's nuts.
IIUC currenlty in iOS user can istall additional software only
when it is signed by Apple. _That_ is nuts, users should own
machines that thay paid for and as owners thay should be able
to install whatever software they wish. Of course, what
users want to install could turn out to be malware, but
users who have enough trust in Apple could opt to install only
Apple-signed software. Othere should be free to install
what they want.
AFAICS GPLv3 require that users can install modified versions
of software. This is easily solvable by having additional
signing keys. One possibility is that people with physical
access to "virgin" machine can access administrative interface
and install additional keys. User who wish so could secure
access to administrative interface. Another possiblity is
to have machine specific signing keys issued to owner of the
machine. The second puts some burden on Apple (they would have
to distribute keys). Assuming access to Internet one could use
certificate system so that intalled binaries would be checked that
they are signed by appropriate entity and users could choose
which keys they accept (that is probably more convenient variation
of the first approach).
Current Apple policy is marginally easier to implement than the
above. But it looks that current policy is used by Apple
mainly due to monopoly aspects: it gives Appla monopoly control
of the whole iOS software market and Apple charges fee to allow
third party access to that market. Clearly, user managed keys
would eliminate this monoply, leading to more healthy market
but less revenue to Apple.
BTW: In current political/security climate I would expect states
to have laws that all software installed on machines sold in
any given state be signed by appropriate authority of this state.
And at least bigger states should insist on access to source code
and that distributed software mathes the sources. Leaving
critical infrastructure like software and software controlled
devices at mercy of foreign companies looks highly irresponsible.
--
Waldek Hebisch
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