Re: Concerning uniliateral decision making with respect to the coreutils package

Hello,

On Wed, 15 Jul 2026, at 22:25, Soren Stoutner wrote:
> That is the core difference between the GPLv2 and the GPLv3.  When the GPLv2 
> came out, nobody had ever used hardware and DRM to lock down software.  Now, 
> that is fairly common.  The GPLv3 was updated to address that.  If the DFSG 
> were written today, I can’t imagine any scenario in which it would not 
> specifically address that as well.

GPLv2 already doesn’t allow what you call DRM preventing to install the software:

> For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.

GPLv3 expands this section to be more explicit:

> “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.
> ...
> Corresponding Source conveyed, and Installation Information provided, in accord with this section must be in a format that is publicly documented (and with an implementation available to the public in source code form), and must require no special password or key for unpacking, reading or copying.

-- 
Cheers,
  Andrej