Bernd Petrovitsch wrote at 06:49 (EST): > The cost of "not suing" is mainly: No one will ever adhere to the > license if no one enforces it.
I agree with this statement above wholeheartedly, although I'd like to again make the distinction between lawsuits and mere "enforcement actions that don't go to litigation". I think we should do a good amount of the latter, and only do the former when it's absolutely necessary. Lawsuits take a lot of time away from other enforcement actions, which means ultimately less compliance gets done, so I prefer to do something that can get more source to more users. Matheus Izvekov wrote at 09:25 (EST): >> The busybox copyright is being used to enforce a whole set of >> ideologies about 'platform hackability' that are not clearly implied >> in the license text and not every copyright holder agrees. The very >> fact that busybox positions itself as GPLv2 only and not 'or later' >> should be a very big clue here. To be abundantly clear, when Conservancy does enforcement on behalf of BusyBox, Conservancy *only* seeks GPLv2 compliance for BusyBox. I'm incredibly careful to only ask for GPLv2 compliance on GPLv2-only programs, BSD-license compliance on BSD-licensed programs, etc. I discussed this in my blog post that I linked to earlier. Note, though, that GPLv2 does require: The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. Conservancy requires that the source for any GPLv2'd programs provide sources that meet that definition. For example, it's widely believe that keys for cryptographically locked down hardware are not part of the source code for GPLv2-only programs, so that's not required by Conservancy unless a GPLv3 program is also present (e.g., Samba). > First and foremost, it's their - the authors rights/copyrights holders > - decision. Indeed, and Conservancy makes sure that some major copyright holders approve its actions during enforcement. For example, I've spoken to Erik and Denys both on the phone since this recent public debate started. We're exploring tweaks on the enforcement process we use now based on feedback received on this thread. > Secondly, I trust any reasonable person here (and the main busybox > contributors and maintainers are reasonable IMHO) to think about it > and not just sue because they feel today like it (and contrary to > popular beliefs, a sue is a lot of - additional - work on the own > side). We all *hate* suing. It takes tons of time: Erik had to fly to NYC for two depositions, I had to be deposed three times, and Conservancy basically did no other GPL enforcement/compliance work while the main litigants were pending in the suit. We're only going to sue again as a last resort on a company that is totally non-responsive. Lawsuits have always been a last resort: that won't change. > Because - obviously - no one is interested in enforcing the license Anyway, I continue to maintain that the key problem here is that BusyBox has been alone in doing enforcement, basically worldwide, for at least a few years. I think getting more projects involved will address a lot of concerns, and I'm working to coordinate that. -- Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list busybox@busybox.net http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
