On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 12:34:37PM -0500, David Champion wrote:
- On 2002.07.18, in <20020718102426.48111@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us>,
- "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
You obviously have not been following the activities of Senator Hollings, D-Disney, whose SSSCA indeed wants to make the very *design* of Linux illegal.
How does this conflict with the design of Linux (or, presumably, any other operating system)? Why is it not possible to integrate DRM support into Linux?
Because the open design of Linux makes it impossible to *hide* the things which the law would required be hidden.
I didn't make this stuff up; look here:
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3813/1/ http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200111/200111.htm#_SSSCAsBitterHarves... http://old.lwn.net/2001/1025/ http://www.sonic.net/~rknop/rant.html#sssca
and a whole lotta buncha stuff here:
http://dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Intellectual_Property/Copyrights/Consumer_Bro...
one of the pieces in which is exceptionally good:
http://www.networkcomputing.com/buzzcut/bc24sep01.html
Please, nobody tell Hollings about CS First Boston and the NYSE, not to mention a large chunk of the backbone. I wanna see what happens when everyone just shuts their Linux boxes down because they've been declared illegal.
Existing systems are grandfathered. It's not clear (to me) whether this applies only to hardware devices, or also to software; or whether a device wishing to be grandfathered needs to be sponsored by some legal entity.
The final outcome will be that no one will manufacture non-SSSCA compliant peripherals like, oh, *hard drives*... and since Linux will not be able to talk to the encrypted ones, it won't *matter* that it's considered a "circumvention device", it just won't be able to run at all.
Not that I support the SSSCA; I just think it pays better to fight on fair terms.
So do I.
In consequence of which I'm not sure what you mean by that.
Cheers, -- jra
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com Member of the Technical Staff Baylink RFC 2100 The Suncoast Freenet The Things I Think Tampa Bay, Florida http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 647 1274
"If you don't have a dream; how're you gonna have a dream come true?" -- Captain Sensible, The Damned (from South Pacific's "Happy Talk")