Patrick McHardy and copyright profiteering (Opensource.com)

Patrick McHardy and copyright profiteering (Opensource.com)

Surely the underlying point remains that if they complied with the licence in the first place, neither would happen.

It's nearly impossible to always follow every rule to the letter. Most people like rules because they just want to get along and play fairly. People who are purposely trying to violate the rules may deserve a "kick in the balls", as you say; but people who are genuinely trying to comply should be given more grace.

This is the approach of the SFC: privately approach violators to try to get them into compliance, sue when private negotiation has failed.

On the other hand, there are some people who like rules because it gives them an opportunity to kick lots of people in the balls and get away with it -- catching people out on small violations that are unintentional.

From what I've read, a large number of people that Patrick has sued are unintentional violators -- people who are trying to comply and mostly succeeding, but failing only here and there. These are not the kind of people we want sued; and suing these kinds of people to extort money will only harm the Linux community.