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Comment by jeffmcjunkin | Hacker News Reader

I think arca_vorago is just commenting on the difficulty of seeing the code to make his or her own modifications to the TV because of GPLv2, and saying that the barrier to entry is considerably higher, such that groups like the CIA can modify the software for nefarious purposes.

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Moreover (and more directly related to the actual article) it is true that the GPLv3 provides more clarity on what constitutes a derivative work:

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/edge/08/...

> GPLv3 adds more clarity with regard to what constitutes a derivative work. For example, GPLv3 states that if the program is "specifically designed" to work with a GPL-governed library, then the library is considered part of the overall work and the entire application is governed by the GPL. However, if one could swap out the GPL library for another library (i.e., if the application wasn't "specifically designed" to work with the GPL library), then it's not part of the overall work and would not be governed by the license.

I feel like they'd just apply the software through their partners, then when anyone complains the partner agency will make a reasonable sounding argument about how whatever they're doing is legal because of some separation between the GPL code and the blackbox code.

It will either then be decided invalid in court much later---in which case the CIA has plenty of time to do whatever it is they wanted to do. Or the existing incestuous relationship between the government and the private company will ensure that this remains a grey area of law for a long long time.

jeffmcjunkin point still stands. In a world of open software and maybe even open hardware, where tivoization and other tricks are prevented, planting backdoors and ensuring they stay undetected becomes very difficult.

More so if software is build reproducibly, signed, and so on.

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