It's never just ignorance

Posted Jul 26, 2004 13:19 UTC (Mon) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224)
In reply to: It's never just ignorance by fjf33
Parent article: OLS: Enforcing the GPL

At this point, any company that uses GPL'd software knows what the license means. If they don't, they deserve to get sued, and fast. I'd be completely surprised if there are any cases of a company using GPL'd software and not complying with the license through ignorance. Which means that companies are making the concious decision to NOT comply with the GPL - so they get sued - so what, they'll drag it out in court until it doesn't matter any more. If you don't think this is a concious business decision on their part, you are completely naive. Companies do this as a matter of course, regardless of the nature of the license on the software they are using (commercial or otherwise). The intent to steal is definately there, as is the intent to delay getting taken to court as long as possible.