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LCA: Cooperative management of package copyright and licensing dataLCA: Cooperative management of package copyright and licensing dataPosted Jan 20, 2010 18:49 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)Parent article: LCA: Cooperative management of package copyright and licensing data "Early GPL enforcement actions against companies like Cisco were, arguably, misplaced: Cisco was just gluing its nameplate onto hardware (and [Kate Stewart] software) supplied to it by far-eastern manufacturing operations." I disagree. Cisco was distributing GPL software without source, or any way to obtain source, so it was in violation of the copyright terms. Now that Cisco knows it will face legal costs for this kind of thing, it will require its contractors and offshore subdivisions to comply with the terms. This means that going directly after Cisco was the most efficient way to address the problem. The only difference between this kind of unknowing infringement, and blatant, conscious infringement is that courts usually don't impose punitive damages on an unknowing infringer. Either way, the problem has to be corrected.
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LCA: Cooperative management of package copyright and licensing data Posted Jan 20, 2010 18:54 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] I agree with all of this - was trying to express that in the article and to say that it has worked. Clearly I didn't entirely succeed. I blame too much New Zealand wine at the LCA speakers' dinner.
LCA: Cooperative management of package copyright and licensing data Posted Jan 20, 2010 19:07 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] The only difference between this kind of unknowing infringement, and blatant, conscious infringement is that courts usually don't impose punitive damages on an unknowing infringer. Either way, the problem has to be corrected.As far as the courts are concerned, this is true. However it's always important to keep in mind that you want friends, not enemies, and friends always try to forgive and work out compromises. It's just a matter of good ethics, sanity, and practicality that you avoid punishing people for mistakes and work with them to resolve the issues. If a compromise can't be found then the court system is the last resort and certainly a justifiable path to take. Of course if somebody is being blatant or is knowingly violating the copyrights then that is another story. Not that I think that you are advocating being a hard-ass about it or anything, I just like to point out things like this. Just for clarification. :)
LCA: Cooperative management of package copyright and licensing data Posted Jan 20, 2010 21:52 UTC (Wed) by emk (guest, #1128) [Link]
It should be noted the SFLC makes an _enormous_ effort to work things out
quietly, without publicity or lawsuits.
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