Re: Possible GPL Violation of Linux in Amstrad's E3 Videophone

[Jon Masters <jonmasters@gmail.com>]

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:40:07 +0000, jmerkey@comcast.net
<jmerkey@comcast.net> wrote:

> Who cares about GPL violations in Linux .

Companies shipping Embedded Linux.

Most people working on devices which run Linux are not evildoers who
are hard bent on undermining the GPL and causing us all headaches.
They have legal teams and rediculously large chains of management,
project managers, etc. etc. All these people are interested in doing
the corporate making money thing but without being sued. Even the
notion that they might be able to be sued for something will be enough
to get most corporations to sit up and at least think about working on
that situation.

> What can anyone do about it anyway.

You could take legal action yourself. You're right, most people won't
bother to do anything and nothing more than a formal compliant would
get made - but then, much of the legal action in the world today
doesn't end up in court precisely because companies would usually like
to avoid this kind of thing from happening in public.

> What punishment will anyone get for it.

The threat of not being able to distribute an infringing product is
probably enough incentive for many companies to not want to be caught
breaking the GPL. They might try to conveniently ignore the license
until someone moans about it (I'm sure many would rather just send you
source when you moan about it) but I don't actually want to risk court
action.

> Even if you review it and make a fuss it does nothing to stop people.  The GPL is flawed
> since it does not require people to go back to the copyright holders and demand a license
> for commerical use.

This is a good thing from my viewpoint.

> This is the only way you will ever stop these people.

No. That's your reasoning and yours alone. Nobody else here has stood
up and agreed with you on this point and I doubt you'll find too many
who will.

> So instead of being whinny babies about it, fix the GPL and add this language.

The GPL isn't broken. At least as far as I am concerned. Therefore it
doesn't need fixing :-).

> Then anyone who uses the code in a commerical enterprise will be required to get a
> license, and you can actually do something about it.

They have a license. If they distribute products then they are bound
by the terms of the GPL and this is a pretty obvious license.

> Oops.  Too late.  Linux has a huge trail of everyone's code under the GPL so you cannot
> re-release the code under another license unless the entire code base is re-written.

Pretty cool stuff huh?

> So anyone can fork it at any point and claim, "we never accepted the license
> even though we download and use the code. Guess what, this is legally valid

You can say that, but you can't then distribute the code. You're
talking out of your arse ;-)

Jon.