Level Playing Field [LWN.net]

Level Playing Field

Posted Feb 3, 2012 3:08 UTC (Fri) by bug1 (guest, #7097)
Parent article: A tempest in a toybox

Violators need to be punished so there isnt a disincentive for complying with the GPL.

If the GPL isnt enforced then there is an incentive to violate the license, reading, understanding and respecting the license does take time.

I believe a common tactic of violators was to
- Ignore license
- Lock down device to make it hard to get caught
- If caught claim ignorance
- Wait for the Free Software community to expend time and resource explaining to them nicely what they should have done. (saving the company money)
- Drag feet
- Comply
- Repeat with next product

In particular the FSF used this softly softly approach and had trouble with repeat offenders.

There is a big cultural difference between corporations and Free software, corporations goal is to make money, if violating the license doesnt risk their profits then they have no reason to comply with the GPL.

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Level Playing Field

Posted Feb 10, 2012 0:37 UTC (Fri) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]

I'm not a Free Software developer. I'm an Open Source developer.

I consider GPLv3 yet another proprietary license. I'm sad GPLv3 undermined GPLv2 to the point it's no longer viable in a lot of contexts, but I got over it and moved on. I'm not the only one. GPL use is declining, and more active license enforcement will only make it decline faster.

(I like the Linux kernel, but busybox was ported to run on bare hardware with newlib+libgloss in 2006. Never think you're _irreplacable_. Nobody is.)

And yes, the guy who started license enforcement on BusyBox is saying that. It's what I learned from the experience. Are your positions based on experience, or on how you _want_ the world to behave?

Rob

(What I do worry about is laws that make modchipping an xbox illegal. Vendors lock game consoles down, people open them up to make unlicensed development workstations with aftermarket add-ons, and the _dangerous_ bit is rendering the aftermarket addons illegal. GPLv3 ain't gonna do that because the vendors can write their own kernel if they want to lock down their console, it just excludes our software from the relevant market. What we _need_ are laws making it explicitly legal for me to pick my own lock. These licensing tricks we're getting up in arms about are irrelevant: Linus explicitly allowed tivoization, and if minor developers start suing people over that _he_ might fork his own project enough rip out/rewrite your code, _and_ testify in the defense of whoever you're suing that his public statements on the matter _mean_ something. If they've got the "secure boot" lockdown and it's illegal for you to crack your own box, the rest is details.)