An enforcement clarification from the kernel community
An enforcement clarification from the kernel community
The Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory board, in response to concerns
about exploitative license enforcement around the kernel, has put together
this patch adding a document to the kernel
describing its view of license enforcement. This document has been signed
or acknowledged by a long list of kernel developers.
In particular, it seeks to
reduce the effect of the "GPLv2 death penalty" by stating that a violator's
license to the software will be reinstated upon a timely return to
compliance. "We view legal action as a last resort, to be initiated
only when other community efforts have failed to resolve the problem.
Finally, once a non-compliance issue is resolved, we hope the user will feel
welcome to join us in our efforts on this project. Working together, we will
be stronger.
"
See this blog post from Greg Kroah-Hartman for more information.