Linus Torvalds, DRM is perfectly ok with Linux

THERE HAS BEEN an emergency scrabble for the asbestos underwear on the Linux Kernel discussion group. Of all the people to start a flame war, this had to come from the person you'd least expect. That's right, Linus Torvalds himself. He popped up and said, "I want to make it clear that DRM is perfectly ok with Linux!"

As you might imagine, pandemonium broke out. Well, flame-throwers broke out anyway. Linus was trying to point out that the operating system should not be politicised. "I've had some private discussions with various people about this already, and I do realize that a lot of people want to use the kernel in some way to just make DRM go away, at least as far as Linux is concerned," say Linus.

But while some people seem determined to make Linux a crusade for what they think is morally right, Linus, thankfully, is having none of it. "I also don't necessarily like DRM myself, but I still ended up feeling the same: I'm an 'Oppenheimer', and I refuse to play politics with Linux, and I think you can use Linux for whatever you want to - which very much includes things I don't necessarily personally approve of."

As you can probably imagine, the flames started to come. But nowhere near as many as you might imagine. It might be a sign of just how powerful a figure Linus has become, a sort of altruistic Bill Gates. He's not in it for the money or the fame, he just wants to make a decent operating system.

Perhaps the whole thing is best summed up by a single quote. "This is just another example of why rms [Richard M. Stallman] calls me 'just an engineer' and thinks I have no ideals." Where plenty of people disagree with Stallman's ideals, it's quite obvious that Torvald's ideals operate on a higher plain. µ