you forgot about gpl-violations [LWN.net]

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 1, 2012 19:45 UTC (Wed) by armijn (subscriber, #3653)
In reply to: you forgot about gpl-violations by corbet
Parent article: A tempest in a toybox

As the guy running the day to day operations at gpl-violations.org I can tell you that that is simply not true. We don't publish about cases, but we have been very active, both with cases and talking to companies directly.

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you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 1, 2012 20:11 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (6 responses)

Is there any way you can put out some information on what you've been doing, at least in statistical form? There is a fairly widespread perception that, for example, nobody is really doing enforcement in the kernel space at the moment. Making people more aware of what is going on might help to ease some concerns in that area.

In other words, it is true that AVC v. Cybits is the only news on gpl-violations.org since 2008. So it looks like not much is going on.

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 1, 2012 20:29 UTC (Wed) by laf0rge (subscriber, #6469) [Link] (2 responses)

The fact is that I'm too overloaded with any kind of work in about all the dozens of projects that I'm involved in, that I don't find much time for gpl-violations.org at the moment. I wanted to have some more news on the website, and a new website for many years, but never got around doing anything about it.

But yes, the project is up and running and we've been doing enforcement all the time along. There's a maximum cap of 10 cases in parallel at this time, to not stretch the thin resources even thinner. The total number of enforcement cases ever since gpl-violations.org has started is certainly beyond 200 now.

Armijn is doing a great job in running the operations, as are other people who are actively contributing but not publicly visible.

I wanted to have at least an annual report on the site every year, but even that didn't happen either. It's pretty depressing if you work 12-14 hours a day, don't take weekends off, not even christmas, and still every day you never find even remotely enough time for all the things you want to do.

Let's see if I can get that report together, but if it will happen, it will probably not happen anytime soon, sorry.

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 2, 2012 0:31 UTC (Thu) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

Even a simple post saying "We've worked on N cases this year, more details when we're not swamped with cases." would help greatly, and would hopefully not require much time to produce.

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 2, 2012 0:32 UTC (Thu) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

By the way: you do awesome work, thanks for doing it. That goes for code as well as for gpl-violations.org.

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 1, 2012 20:32 UTC (Wed) by armijn (subscriber, #3653) [Link] (2 responses)

I will see what I can mine from my archive. Our focus in 2011 and 2012 has been on Android, especially tablets. As many people have noticed, the situation there is pretty bad.

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 1, 2012 21:42 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (1 responses)

I understand you are busy but if you don't have a good impression on SFC and don't publish the work you are doing in this area, it is natural for people to assume SFC is the only entity doing this and this gives them more power. If you want to balance that, publicise what you do.

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 1, 2012 22:34 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

I second that. Working on only half the cases BUT publicising them will have a much better chilling effect on violators.

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 2, 2012 4:03 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

How about a simple question. Would you agree (in any way) with the allegation raised by Tim that SFC is demanding unreasonable terms in comparison to your own organization? It was always my impression that what SFC was demanding was little different that what your own group was demanding. And if you don't mind could you list the approach and demands that are generally made by your own organization?

I'm curious if Tim is correct in his assertion that there is this huge difference in how the two organizations work and what they demand for cure.

you forgot about gpl-violations

Posted Feb 2, 2012 10:21 UTC (Thu) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

I'd say the comment by Armijn higher up in the page speaks for itself... He questioned the legality of SFC's actions (rightly so or not) so I doubt gpl-violations acts that same way then.