'A lawyer who is also idealist - how refreshing'

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk>
Date: March 30, 2006 3:10:43 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: 'A lawyer who is also idealist - how refreshing'

Hi Dave:

The Technology section of today's (UK) Guardian newspaper contains an  
interesting full-page interview with Eblen Moglen.

> 'A lawyer who is also idealist - how refreshing'
>
> The legal guardian of the free software movement explains why,  
> after 12 years, the time is right to release version 3 of its  
> constitution for public comment
>
> Glyn Moody
> Thursday March 30, 2006
> The Guardian
>
> At least 10% more programming effort is being poured into software  
> released under the General Public Licence (GPL) - the legal  
> underpinning of three-quarters of all free software such as the  
> Linux operating system - than the combined output of all the  
> programmers in Microsoft.
>
> So says Eben Moglen, who has been analysing the coding hours per  
> week people have done. And he should know: this hacker lawyer has  
> for the past 12 years been official guardian of the GPL, and is  
> overseeing the important process of crafting version 3 of what  
> amounts to a constitution for the world of free software.
>
> . . .
> [He was] a defence lawyer to Phil Zimmermann, whose Pretty Good  
> Privacy encryption program had incurred the wrath of the US  
> government, which was trying to keep such tools out of the hands of  
> ordinary users, in what came to be known as the crypto wars.
>
> That brought him to the attention of Richard Stallman, the founder  
> of the Free Software Foundation and author of the original GPL.  
> Moglen recalls: "I wrote him an email in which I said I use Emacs  
> [a powerful editor and hacker tool written by Stallman] every day;  
> it'll be a long time before you exhaust your entitlement to free  
> legal help from me." Stallman, for his part, notes: "a lawyer who  
> is also idealist is a refreshing combination."
>
> The pair began thinking about revising the GPL almost immediately:  
> Moglen says their discussions fill a large proportion of the 16,000  
> email messages they have exchanged.  He explains why it is only  
> now, after 12 years, that they have released a draft (http:// 
> gplv3.fsf.org) for public comment.
>
> "I believed there would be a strategic advantage in releasing the  
> GPL for discussion at a time when its most committed adversaries  
> had other things on their mind. To have Microsoft busy getting a  
> release of Windows together and engaging in heaps of positive  
> publicity about itself seemed better than bringing a licence out at  
> a time when they would not pay any substantial price for engaging  
> in a lot of name-calling."
>
> But the main trigger was "the immense embedded revolution around  
> free software going on", he says. "Embedded" software runs devices  
> such as mobile phones or MP3 players - devices where users aren't  
> aware there is an operating system, let alone that it is likely to  
> be GNU/Linux. "You have companies who we don't even think of as  
> very big companies, who have 40 million units in the field with  
> free software inside," says Moglen. "We're talking about a scale of  
> commercial use and of a presence in people's lives that is  
> overwhelming."
>
> From a practical viewpoint, it was important to make sure that  
> version 3 worked well for embedded devices - an area not envisaged  
> when version 2 was drawn up in 1991. But Moglen emphasises that the  
> principal reason embedded devices needed to be addressed was that  
> they will have profound implications for users' rights - an issue  
> at the heart of the licence. "One feeds directly into the other,"  
> Moglen says. "You're going to live in a world of devices, [and]  
> you're going to have problems protecting users' rights in the  
> devices."
>
> . . .
>
> Some companies, notably those who sell music and films, want to  
> control users' computers and entertainment devices through digital  
> rights management (DRM) although Stallman prefers to call it  
> digital restrictions management. The new version of the GPL licence  
> says that creators of programs and embedded devices are free to add  
> DRM to systems that use software released under the GPL (like GNU/ 
> Linux) - but on one condition: that users can change the underlying  
> software.
>
> "GPL 3 is like GPL 2," Moglen says. "It wants you to be able to use  
> free software in combination with non-free software, providing you  
> do so in ways that don't obscure the user's rights in the free  
> software parts." In practice, this means users must always have the  
> freedom to circumvent DRM schemes by modifying the accompanying GPL  
> software. If they can't, they lose a vital freedom that Stallman's  
> licence guarantees: to be able to change a program in any way they  
> choose.
>
> Manufacturers of embedded systems have a strong incentive to play  
> along. As Moglen points out: "What they want is a very robust,  
> highly debugged, completely stable, omni-competent, zero dollars  
> per unit software platform for agile manufacture of devices in the  
> future." Only one meets all those requirements: GNU/Linux.
>
> . . .

Full article at:

  http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1742104,00.html

--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon  
Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/


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