FSF Outs the World Wide Web Consortium over DRM Proposal
Richard Stallman calls for the W3C to remain independent of vendor interests.
Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman continued his crusade against Digital Rights Management (DRM) with a recent post at the FSF website, calling for the World Wide Web consortium to reject a proposal to add specifications for DRM. The post includes a link to a petition for online readers to register their concerns about the W3C proposal.
Stallman has labored for years to raise awareness about the dangers of DRM, a collection of encryption technologies used by hardware vendors, software vendors, and media companies to limit access to digital information after the sale. The FOSS community remains divided on the issue. Linus Torvalds and others have been critical of Stallman's anti-DRM focus, and the strong prohibition of DRM (which Stallman calls "Digital Restrictions Management") is one of the reasons why the Linux kernel is still licensed under Version 2 of the GPL rather than the DRM-unfriendly Version 3.
The GPL debates, however, were based on differing interpretations on the role of a software license, not necessarily on merits of DRM itself. Over the last few years, the use of encryption has expanded exponentially with higher bandwidth, faster processors, and the growth of the Internet as a content distribution medium. Stallman argues that no one can prevent vendors from adding DRM restrictions to HTML content through proprietary plugins and other non-free code, but a world-wide standards body such as the W3C should not be lending its support to DRM through official standards.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.