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Why a "little extra"? Because that's the right amountWhy a "little extra"? Because that's the right amountPosted Dec 15, 2009 10:33 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)In reply to: Why a "little extra"? by vondo Parent article: Best Buy, Samsung, And Westinghouse Named In SFLC Suit Today
The SFLC is probably content to do this forever. Lawyers who prosecute people for fraud or theft will be doing that forever too.
Punitive costs aren't what we want as a community - the objective is to ensure that around the world, company directors think of GPL compliance as non-optional, like paying their taxes, just a cost of doing business. Winning and settling a long series of lawsuits establishes that thinking without multi-million dollar amounts.
If the SFLC gets enough money from each such lawsuit to fund the next, plus a "little extra" then we're doing well enough IMO.
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Why a "little extra"? Because that's the right amount Posted Dec 18, 2009 12:42 UTC (Fri) by malor (subscriber, #2973) [Link]
Yeah, it shouldn't be a profit center, just a method to keep the capitalists in line. Their use of free software is wonderful, and we want to encourage it, not discourage it. We want them to understand that there some rules they have to follow to get access to all that great code, but that the rules aren't especially onerous and that using GPLed code isn't scary. We want them to (correctly) think that it's often a better solution than BSD or proprietary packages.
SOME of them may even turn into contributors, but getting that code into as many devices as possible is a good end in and of itself, because it usually makes devices much more hackable. It gives the free software community more control over their hardware. Even if they never contribute a line of code, they ARE contributing devices that RUN that code.
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