In the previous article on copyleft licences, one detail was worth pausing on properly: GPLv3 (2007) added an anti-tivoization clause, and the Linux kernel never moved to GPLv3. The most visible opponent of that version: Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux.
You might assume he favours DRM, or that he neglects user freedom. Neither is true: his position is coherent and rests on a precise idea — a software licence should govern software, not hardware. Unpacking it is worthwhile, because it reveals a real fault line within the free-software world itself.
A preliminary point: “GPLv2 only,” not “v2 or later”#
Many projects release under “GPLv2 or later”: such wording lets anyone move the code to a more recent version of the licence. The Linux kernel, however, is under GPLv2 only — its COPYING file states that it is governed “under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only,” without the “or later” option.
Practical consequence: even if everyone wanted it, moving the kernel to GPLv3 would require the agreement of all the rights holders — thousands of contributors accumulated over decades. In practice, that is impossible. So “v2 only” is both a practical lock and a deliberate choice: before any debate of opinion even begins, the switch was out of reach.
Sources: Linux kernel,
COPYINGfile · Kernel documentation, “License rules”.
The core objection: the licence covers the software, not the hardware#
The heart of the disagreement is the anti-tivoization clause. The principle Torvalds defends, in his own words (January 2006):
“I believe that a software license should cover the software it licenses.”
For him, whether a device accepts only signed firmware is a matter of hardware design — a manufacturer’s decision, not the business of the software licence. He says so bluntly (February 2006):
“I literally feel that we do not — as software developers — have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. […] I do software, and I license software.”
Yet GPLv3 requires, for this kind of device, that the manufacturer provide the means to install and run a modified version (the “installation information,” meaning in practice the signing keys). That is exactly the point Torvalds rejects:
“I think it’s insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn’t do it.”
He even went so far as to call the term “tivoization” itself misplaced, arguing that TiVo complied with GPLv2 (the company did publish the source code) and had therefore, in his view, done nothing illegitimate.
Sources: messages from Linus Torvalds (January–February 2006) — themed “GPL” archive on yarchive.net (verbatim copies with dates and Message-IDs) · Computerworld, “Torvalds says no to GPLv3” · LKML thread “GPL V3 and Linux”.
“Pro-DRM”: what he actually said#
The label is not invented: Torvalds wrote plainly, in April 2003, “I want to make it clear that DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!”, and he opposed using the GPL to forbid DRM. But “DRM is allowed” does not mean “DRM is good”: it is exactly the same rule as for hardware — a licence says what you must share (the source code), not what you are allowed to do with the software. Refusing to let it ban a use is not praising that use.
What he rejected in GPLv3 is therefore not “less DRM,” but the hardware-related obligation (handing over the signing keys). And in the face of locks, his bet is not coercion through the licence but competition: he reckoned that hardware which restricts its users would eventually lose on its own, hostility to the user not being a good business model.
In other words, where the FSF wants to forbid the lock through the licence, Torvalds prefers to let the market punish it. You may find that bet naive or realistic — that is another debate — but allowing DRM (refusing to ban it through the licence) is not the same as promoting it.
Sources: LWN.net, “Linus on digital rights management” (April 2003 — “DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!”) · Linux.com, “Stallman, Torvalds, Moglen share views on DRM and GPLv3”.
The real divide: FSF ethics versus open-source pragmatism#
At bottom, this is not a technical quarrel but a disagreement over values — the same one that separates “free software” from “open source”:
- For Richard Stallman and the FSF, the user’s freedom must be protected all the way onto their machine: if you can read and modify the code but not run your modified version on your own device, the freedom is only apparent. The anti-tivoization clause fills that gap.
- For Torvalds, GPLv2 is a balanced exchange — “you get the code, you give back your changes to the code” — and the licence has no business reaching beyond the code itself.
Two coherent value systems, not one camp being right against the other. The result, however, is concrete: the most important GPL project in the world, the Linux kernel, stayed on GPLv2 — and it is far from an isolated case. Four years after the release of v3, roughly 42% of catalogued free-software projects were still on GPLv2, versus ~6% on GPLv3 (Black Duck, 2011); adoption of v3 remained partial, for reasons specific to each project rather than out of allegiance to Torvalds. The debate was never settled; above all, it shows that “free software” is not monolithic.
Source: GNU General Public License — GPLv2 / GPLv3 adoption (Wikipedia, based on Black Duck 2011 data).
In short#
Torvalds’s rejection of GPLv3 is neither a whim nor a betrayal of freedom: it is a different conception of the scope of a licence. Stallman wants the licence to protect the user even into the hardware; Torvalds wants it to stop at the software. Understanding this point is understanding why two people equally committed to free software could, in perfectly good faith, choose opposite sides — and why your phone or your console, for their part, often stay locked no matter what.
Sources and references#
- Linux kernel licence (GPLv2 only) —
COPYINGfile · Documentation, “License rules” - Torvalds’s statements (January–February 2006) — themed “GPL” archive on yarchive.net (verbatim copies, dated, with traceable Message-IDs) · Computerworld, “Torvalds says no to GPLv3” · LKML thread “GPL V3 and Linux”
- DRM, Torvalds’s position — LWN.net, “Linus on digital rights management” (April 2003) · Linux.com, “Stallman, Torvalds, Moglen share views on DRM and GPLv3”
- Tivoization and GPLv3 — Tivoization (Wikipedia) · Stallman, “Why Upgrade to GPLv3” (GNU)
