# TiVo warns that GPL3 could hurt its business

Since the main point of the Free Software Foundation's new GPL3 (General Public License 3) is to prevent "TiVo-isation," this surely does not come as a surprise. However, Information Week reports that in an SEC filing, TiVo says: "If the currently proposed version of GPLv3 is widely adopted, we may be unable to incorporate future enhancements to the GNU/Linux operating system into our software, which could adversely affect our business."

The crux of the case is that TiVo uses GNU/Linux with added DRM (digital rights management), exploiting a loophole in GPL2. GPL3, according to FSF-founder and GNU-father Richard Stallman, "doesn't forbid DRM, or any kind of feature. It places no limits on the substantive functionality you can add to a program, or remove from it. Rather, it makes sure that you are just as free to remove nasty features as the distributor of your copy was to add them."

TiVo could, of course, stick with GPL2, and this might suit Linus Torvalds, who started the development of the Linux kernel used in GNU/Linux. However, as Stallman points out: