Open Source Showdown: Linus Torvalds vs. Richard Stallman

Open source is about to get a whole lot more....confusing. The current matter at hand is GPL version 3 (click here to view the draft on the Free Software Foundation web site), which will attempt to restrict the use of (1) GPL software to be used in DRM-enabled applications or (2) GPL code to be used in patented applications. The draft explains:

DRM is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the GPL, which is to protect users' freedom; therefore, the GPL ensures that the software it covers will neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden.

Finally, every program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the special danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, the GPL makes it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

Linus Torvalds has called the idea "insane," citing that GPL v2 already requires the source code to be distributed -- v3 is simply trying to fight hardware providers. Torvalds explains:

Sure, DRM may mean that you can not _install_ or _run_ your changes on somebody else's hardware. But it in no way changes the fact that you got all the source code, and you can make changes (and use their changes) to it. That requirement has always been there, even with plain GPLv2. You have the source.

The difference? The hardware may only run signed kernels. The fact that the hardware is closed is a _hardware_ license issue. Not a software license issue. I'd suggest you take it up with your hardware vendor, and quite possibly just decide to not buy the hardware.

Torvalds has gone on to state that the Linux kernel will never be released under the proposed GPL v3. This would result in potential license compatibility problems for projects that need to integrate Linux with GPL v3 and DRM.

Newsforge has an interesting article explaining Torvalds perspective. He is quoted heavily in the article.

LinuxP2P has a recent interview with Richard Stallman that explains his perspective.

Whose side are you on? Is Stallman a nut case? Or has Linus sold out?