Ithaca Inspiration and DRM

[Peter Brown]

2006 Annual Associate Members Meeting

Recordings now available:
http://www.fsf.org/associate/meetings/2006/am-meeting-recordings-2006.html

At last year's Associate Members meeting we were all inspired by the
outreach work undertaken by the free software group in Ithaca, NY.
(http://ithacafreesoftware.org/)

At this year's meeting, held at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology on Saturday April 1, we launched a Members Forum, enjoying
a session at the end of the day entitled "moving free software into
the mainstream" led by FSF board member Henri Poole.

The aim of the Members Forum was to draw upon the inspiration provided
by the Ithaca group and identify all the ways in which the Foundation
and its members can effectively campaign for free software and build a
stronger community. During the meeting we broke into geographical
groups, and were pleased to help introduce members to one another. The
results of that session were recorded in a new wiki, and that wiki is
now open to the community and we encourage you to add new pages for
your state, country, region and get connected to other members, and
free software activists. You can form your free software group now
(http://groups.fsf.org/) and listen to this session as well as the
other recordings made at the members meeting
(http://www.fsf.org/associate/meetings/2006/am-meeting-recordings-2006.html).

The day started with presentations from FSF staff. Dave Turner, FSF
Compliance Engineer and GPLv3 coordinator, delivered a spirited attack
on DRM, questioning Larry Lessig's recent backing for SUN's OpenDRM,
and detailing the progress of FSF's work on GPLv3.

The FSF Sysadmin team ran through the technical resources provided to
the community, and Justin Baugh gave us some interesting statistics.
For instance, the GNU and FSF mailing lists have over 50,000 unique
subscribers participating in more than 2,100 mailing lists. More than
1/2 million tarballs and 22,000 ISO images are downloaded every month
from ftp.gnu.org and the Free Software Directory receives 2.25 million
page views per month. Ward Vandewege gave a progress report on our
Free BIOS campaign and upgrading FSF servers to run LinuxBIOS.

FSF Program Administrator John Sullivan updated the members on FSF
campaigns and reflected on the Open Document battle in Massachusetts.
He also ran through the new resources provided at
https://www.fsf.org/resources

FSF Assignment Administrator Jonas Jacobson and FSF Directory
Maintainer Ted Teah demonstrated the new copyright assignment web form
and other resources.

I gave a short outline of some of the ongoing efforts being made to
get more mainstream press coverage, looking at ways to frame Free
Software as an issue for civil society.

After a short coffee break, FSF Board member Geoffrey Knauth delivered
a speech entitled "The economic impact of increasing use of free
software in society", explaining the trends we are seeing in free
software use.

After lunch FSF Board member and MIT professor Gerry Sussman delivered
a speech entitled "software is never finished", based upon his current
lectures series at MIT. I personally found the examples he gave, of
his students work on replicating mathematical models found in nature,
to be particularly fascinating.

FSF Board member and legal counsel Eben Moglen's speech "The Hardware
Wars and the future of free software", was a classic in every way.
What can I say? You must listen to this.

I think Richard set a speed record in his delivery of a comprehensive
speech on the threats posed by Digital Restrictions Management DRM),
and followed by taking a number of questions from members.

Members were now well primed to discuss their ideas in the Members
Forum. And one major theme was apparent from this years meeting, and
from discussions at the FSF board meeting held the following day - 
It's time to launch a broad based campaign against DRM.


A Campaign against DRM

The anti-DRM provisions in the draft release of GPLv3 represent the
line in the sand that the free software movement has drawn and said
will not be crossed with respect to its covered work. But DRM
threatens the freedom of all computer users, and allowing it to gain a
stranglehold in our homes is unacceptable.

Work covered by GPLv2 only is a target for Tivoization, and that puts
all free software developers' freedoms at risk. Freedom 1*, the
freedom to tinker, will quickly be eroded in world where devices will
not run modified code. We can hope that people will not buy such
devices, and that there will be a market left to cater to our needs.
But what if there isn't?

DRM is also an apparatus for surveillance in our homes. Media
interests don't just want to prevent copying of their works, they want
to extend their reach into all our activities. They want to turn ever
interaction you might have with a copyrighted work into a transaction,
and to do that, they need the keys to your home so that they can
monitor you. DRM is their first entry point, and the framework upon
which surveillance is being legitimized.

Device manufacturers are in a dilemma. They are threatened by
Hollywood, which says that you must incorporate DRM if you want to be
able to play Hollywood movies. If one manufacturer doesn't take the
bait, then another might, and they will be locked out.  When you
combine Hollywood and the other large media interests, their business
is but a fraction of the size of that of device manufacturers, and yet
manufacturers kowtow to these threats. Why? The MPAA and the RIAA are
well connected to US legislatures, and are of course, in the business
of creative works and illusion. They punch above their weight.

GPLv3 is the line in the sand against DRM. We could just defend our
position, but what we really need to do, is cross this line and
challenge DRM:

 - Protect Freedom 1* .

 - Don't give Big Media the keys to our homes.

 - Help the device manufacturers understand that their real interests
lie with their customers not Hollywood.

 - Organize with other free software activists and start a free
software group in your area (http://groups.fsf.org/)


Peter Brown
FSF Executive Director

*
Freedom 0    The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
Freedom 1    The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it
to your needs.
Freedom 2    The freedom to redistribute copies.
Freedom 3    The freedom to improve the program, and release your
improvements to the public.