GPLv3~\S2\P2 distinguishes between activities of a licensee that are

permitted without limitation and activities that trigger additional

requirements.  Specifically, GPLv3~\S2\P2 guarantees the basic freedoms of

privately modifying and running the program.

Also, GPLv3~\S2\P2 gives an explicit permission for a client to provide a

copy of its modified software to a contractor exclusively for that contractor

to modify it further, or run it, on behalf of the client.  However, the

client can \textit{only} exercise this control over its own copyrighted

changes to the GPL-covered program.  The parts of the program it obtained

from other contributors must be provided to the contractor with the usual GPL

freedoms.  Thus, GPLv3 permits users to convey covered works to contractors

operating exclusively on the users' behalf, under the users' direction and

control, and to require the contractors to keep the users' copyrighted

changes confidential, but \textit{only if} the contractor is limited to acting

on the users' behalf (just as the users' employees would have to act).

The strict conditions in this ``contractors provision'' are needed so that it

cannot be twisted to fit other activities, such as making a program available

to downstream users or customers.  By making the limits on this provision

very narrow, GPLv3 ensures that, in all other cases, contractors gets the

full freedoms of the GPL that they deserve.

% FIXME: new section here, just to talk DRM before the other section.

GPLv3 introduces provisions that respond to the growing practice of

distributing GPL-covered programs in devices that employ technical means

to restrict users from installing and running modified versions.  This

practice thwarts the expectations of developers and users alike, because

the right to modify is one of the core freedoms the GPL is designed to

secure.

Technological measures to defeat users' rights --- often described by such

Orwellian phrases as ``digital rights management,'' which actually means

limitation or outright destruction of users' legal rights, or ``trusted

computing,'' which actually means selling people computers they cannot trust

--- are alike in one basic respect.  They all employ technical means to turn

the system of copyright law, where the powers of the copyright holder are

limited exceptions to general freedom, into a prison, where everything not

specifically permitted is utterly forbidden, and indeed, if the full extent

of their ambition is realized, would be technically impossible.  This system

of ``para-copyright'' has been created since the adoption of GPLv2, through

legislation in the United States, the European Union, and elsewhere that

makes it a serious civil or even criminal offense to escape from these

restrictions, even where the purpose in doing so is to restore the users'

legal rights that the technology wrongfully prevents them from exercising.