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U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?Posted Sep 21, 2007 15:32 UTC (Fri) by vondo (guest, #256)In reply to: U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit? by ndye Parent article: SFLC files first U.S. GPL violation lawsuit
I have no idea what's going on in this case, but it would also seem to make sense, at some point, to make an example of a company which is "stealing" GPLed code.
If companies are planning products get it in their heads that they can use GPLed code, not release the source, and then, IF they are caught, release the source after long "negotiations," there is no real encouragement for them to do the right thing in the first place.
A couple of settlements in cases like this might make GPL violations in the future much less common. So far, free software developers have been MUCH nicer about this than any company would have been.
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U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit? Posted Sep 23, 2007 10:47 UTC (Sun) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] I have no idea what's going on in this case, but it would also seem to make sense, at some point, to make an example of a company which is "stealing" GPLed code.Exactly. And to do that, they should ask for more damages than just profits. If the damages are supposed to have a penalising effect, they should ask for all *revenues* or triple profits or something like that. If all that happens to a GPL violator is to lose the illegally attained profits, then it also encourages to continue violation, since expectancy of profits remain positive. (You can't really loose, but you can still win, just keep trying...)
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