> I've talked to a few lawyers and they basically consider GPLv3 a contract that isn't worth bothering with.
That isn't a reason. Lawyers don't have magical powers to reason about the business implications of legal documents, the interesting thing they can tell you is how the law will treat the words, e.g. if some part of the document would not be enforceable or would do something you wouldn't have expected from reading it. It would actually be interesting if they said something like that, because that would be a reason. Ask them for a reason. Otherwise it's just FUD.
It is quite obvious that if your intent was to produce a tivoized product then GPLv3 is not your friend, because that was the point. But most people don't want to do that, so why should they care?
Generally the lawyers say the need to divulge keys in hardware is the biggest problem. That's a clear problem for a hardware company trying to secure things.
I guess that depends what you mean by "secure things." If you mean tivoize then no kidding. But what kind of actual security requires the device owner to be unconditionally locked out of the device? It seems to be working as intended.
Backplanes generally that communicate state would be one example. It is mostly things that users shouldn't care about and can easily break things if they try poking about.
I still don't understand why it would be necessary to unconditionally lock the users out. Nobody says you have to encourage them to do it, but why get in their way? If people want to shoot themselves in the foot, it's their foot.
That isn't a reason. Lawyers don't have magical powers to reason about the business implications of legal documents, the interesting thing they can tell you is how the law will treat the words, e.g. if some part of the document would not be enforceable or would do something you wouldn't have expected from reading it. It would actually be interesting if they said something like that, because that would be a reason. Ask them for a reason. Otherwise it's just FUD.
It is quite obvious that if your intent was to produce a tivoized product then GPLv3 is not your friend, because that was the point. But most people don't want to do that, so why should they care?