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exclusive Digital rights management and the General Public License cause a lot of 'hot air' to be exchanged but they are not a 'big deal', according to the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds.
DRM is a technology used to control the copying and distribution of content such as music and films while GPLv3 is a software licence drafted by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and intended to be used to govern how free and open source software can be copied and changed.
According to Torvalds, both DRM technology and GPLv3 will cause "lots of arguments" but in the bigger scheme of things, neither will stop good technology from prevailing.
"I suspect -- and I may not be right -- but when it comes to things like DRM or licensing, people get really very excited about them. People have very strong opinions. I have very strong opinions and they happen to be for different reasons than many other people.
"It ends up in a situation where people really like to argue -- and that very much includes me... I expect this to raise a lot of bad blood but at the same time, at the end of the day, I don't think it really matters that much.
"I think it is going to cause a lot of hot air, it's going to cause a lot of hurt feelings, there is going to be a lot of arguments about it. But in practice will it be a big deal? I suspect it is not going to be that big. But time will tell," Torvalds said during an interview at linux.conf.au in Sydney today.
Torvalds admitted he has a particular dislike for DRM technology because it makes life more difficult for users.
"One reason I really dislike DRM is that it is technologically an inferior solution to not doing DRM. It actually makes it harder for people to do what they want to do. It makes it harder to do things that you really should be able to do," said Torvalds.
Although Torvalds admits he is "very much down on DRM", he is tolerant of other people using the technology.
"At the same time, on a completely different tangent -- forget about technology -- I am a big believer in letting people do what they want to do. If somebody wants to do DRM it is their problem. I don't want anything to do with it.
"It is something that sometimes puts me at odds with people in the technical area who have an agenda that they want to drive,' he said.
GPLv3 just another licence
When asked about GPLv3, which is due for release in the first quarter of this year, Torvalds said it was 'interesting' but also not a big deal.
"It is certainly interesting since the GPLv2 has been a defacto standard in the open source free software group for 16 years -- or something like that. It's a long time and in that sense it is a watershed event.
"At the same time, if you look at the number of licenses that people have been using over the years, it is just another licence. It is not that big a deal. It depends on how you look at it," he added.
The current version of the GPL (v2) was published in 1991 and applies to around two thirds of free and open source software.
The best technology will win, eventually
Torvalds believes that despite all the arguments about which technology or software development methodology is better, 'good technology' will win in the end.
"One of the issues I have is that the most important thing is good technology. It's not about being commercial or non-commercial, open source or closed source. To me, the reason I do open source is, it is fun. That is the most basic thing.
"I also happen to believe that it is the best way to, eventually, get the best end result. Part of that is the 'eventually'. At any particular point in time, it may not always be the best thing right then," he said.
To watch the 3.5 minute video of this story, click here.
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SMR - 17/01/07
Hot air, huh? That's coming from a guy who has financially benefited from the freedom guaranteed by GPL. If Linux kernel had been licensed under BSD, proprietary intrests will just hijack the code, and he would have taken real (boring) jobs and nobody would have noticed his weekend hobby. It is easy to say it won't matter and everything will be fine when you are a multimillionaire, isn't it? Except that even Torvalds cannot escape from the scourge of bad licence when he chose BitKeeper!
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Thor - 17/01/07
Not to be such a contrarian, but I tend to agree with SMR. Linus teeters are the proprietary brink quite a bit. Maybe because he just wants the right tool for the job. That's fine. But that doesn't mix with the source of Linux's success, strength, and stability- not to mention longevity. It cannot be killed because of the GPL. You introduce the proprietary into the kernel and it, as of that instant, can be killed. This isn't religion. It's the fact of code.
Bitkeeper was a bad call. I concur with that. We aren't doing Linux to get there now. We are doing it because it's the right way and it will be around long after the nukes fall. Open source is foremost made to last. That's why businesses use it. That's why people use it. And that's why the human race needs it. DRM is fine if you want to live in the dark ages. I don't. That's why I use Linux. Fuss with my perception at your own peril kernel dev's. Good interview otherwise. Linus is still cool. I just don't think he's worked enough with Microsoft to get an idea of what proprietary hell really is.
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