Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Feb 2, 2012 2:32 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
In reply to: Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement by Wol
Parent article: Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

I think calling large manufacturers "victims" when they are discovered to be engaged in copyright infringement and when the remedy is to comply with the very easy license terms is absurd, laughable. The whole purpose is to make license compliance easy and automatic while preserving reciprocity.

The "itch" that is being scratched here is the existence of the GPL and it's requirement for reciprocity. Many people are offended by the implicit assumption that enforcing the reciprocity terms of the GPL is a bad thing, that we should look other way if the offender is a big vendor. It's also offensive to suggest that the GPL is dangerous and that its license terms are too onerous or risky when that is clearly not true. There are many reasons to choose other licenses like BSD but I think in this case its not really a positive thing.

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Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Feb 3, 2012 19:18 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

You seem to be ignoring the elephant in the room.

As Tim points out, they are a big company. They have hundreds of products that use linux. It only takes ONE supplier to make a mistake, and ALL of those products could be vetoed and off the market.

Yes I know Sony Entertainment and Sony Hardware are totally separate divisions, and the hardware side is tarred with the entertainment brush, but the fact appears to be that the hardware side want to play fair.

Let me use a footballing analogy. I have no qualms with a sending off for a deliberate foul (and indeed, think that that should be the *automatic* penalty!). But I DO have an issue with a player getting sent off for an innocent mistake - for example if the keeper is out of his area and gets hit on the arm by a ball he may not even have seen coming...! As I understand the rules, if your hand or arm makes contact then it's handball. And if a keeper commits handball it's an automatic red card. Why should the keeper get sent off for that?

THAT is Tim's point. One player makes a mistake, and the entire team cops a penalty. And THAT is why I'm quite happy to describe them as a victim. (Sony as a whole, well... I was one of the people who's PC was trashed by the rootkit, so they are on my "do not buy" list, but just because I don't like them is no reason to ignore them when they are victims of what I perceive as manifest unjustice!)

Cheers,
Wol

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Feb 3, 2012 19:24 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> It only takes ONE supplier to make a mistake, and ALL of those products could be vetoed and off the market.

I don't think that is a legitimate statement of risk although clearly some people believe it.

> I'm quite happy to describe them as a victim.

I think that to be a victim requires a the abuse of a power imbalance of the stronger against the weaker which is obviously the opposite as the described situation. That's just my opinion though and reasonable people could disagree.