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The Grumpy Editor's 2008 retrospectiveThe Grumpy Editor's 2008 retrospectivePosted Jan 13, 2009 20:14 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (guest, #50784)Parent article: The Grumpy Editor's 2008 retrospective
Enforcement of the GPL is necessary if we expect our licenses to be taken seriously, but overly zealous - or greedy - litigation could encourage those who say that use of free software exposes companies to an unacceptable level of risk. How is legal action against Cisco or any of the other persistent infringers "zealous"? As far as exposure to risk is concerned, it's shocking how businesses pretend to be all "professional" (whilst portraying the Free Software community as "hobbyists"), have a bunch of lawyers ready to litigate at a moment's notice, and yet seem unable to read and understand common software licences. But then again, the fashion in big business today seems to be about paying scant attention to regulations, knowing that saying "sorry" in the least insincere way possible when caught doing something wrong will probably get you off the hook. If 2008 had any major lessons to offer, one of them would surely be that the public, typically overridden and manipulated by big business, occasionally demand that corporate interests be brought to account for their behaviour. The FSF and SFLC, typically constructive in their efforts to resolve licensing problems, shouldn't need to apologise for their litigation efforts: they're only bringing to book those corporate entities who, despite reasonable attempts at persuasion, still believe that anything which isn't nailed down by a guy with a private jet and a large legal department is just there for the taking.
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