Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

Posted Jan 28, 2014 7:47 UTC (Tue) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942)
In reply to: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft by mathstuf
Parent article: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

> That fits with the GPLv3.

I was not talking about enabling developer mode on the Chromebook that disabled kernel verification, I meant a possibility to install a custom boot loader. The developer mode still does not allow that, one has to tinker with the hardware. And I do not even see how enabling developers mode fits with the “Installation Information” section in GPLv3:

“Installation Information” for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source. The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.

Note the requirement that modified code is not interfered. This is not the case with the Chromebook as after activating that mode I cannot deactivate it and keep my changes. And if the mode is activated, then booting is clearly affected with a rather annoying message precisely "because modification has been made".

To stay within GPLv3 either the Google should provide a way to sign the code with their keys or Chromebook should allow to install custom keys (like with Windows 8 x86 hardware).

In any case, hardware changes to get a custom boot loader are outside “Installation Information” as otherwise anybody can claim that one can always disable a verified boot using a probing station or something to change a value in the register at the runtime.

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