Hi Jason,
On June 7, 2021 5:24:12 PM UTC, Jason Merrill wrote:
>
> Why would someone bother to hassle a redistributor who can just say
> "nonsense, we're in compliance, the corresponding source is at this
> URL"?
Usually it's a matter of money AND details.
> What return on their time can they reasonably expect?
Money.
You are overly underestimating how long in takes to get a sentence over the
world.
In Italy it could literally take a decade.
Also there is ALWAYS uncertaintly when in comes to courts.
That's why in most cases, these matters do not reach a sentence.
For most corporations over the world it's way cheaper to pay the "troll",
be him right or wrong.
With the previous CA policy, this could not happen.
That's why it should be managed like a major breaking change.
> The Linux kernel community adopted the GPL3 curing process ("GPL
> cooperation commitment") as a remedy for the troll problem. Do you
> think this was a pointless exercise?
At best, it's more a form risk mitigation to the corporate needs of the first
world
than a solution to the "copyright troll" problem.
But the fact is that GCC was completely unaffected with the previous policy.
And I'm not even arguing agaist the new one!
I'm just asking to clearly mark with a new version its application.
In a few years, as the existing versions will be deprecated, the new policy
will
become the only one, but at least users will have had time to assess their
business with GCC.
> > And also because there are many fewer redistributors of GCC, and
> they are
> > in the business of distributing software.
> >
> > And why GCC redistribution should be discouraged?
> >
>
> It shouldn't! My point is that businesses redistributing GCC are such
> that compliance with the GPL is natural for them, unlike, say,
> manufacturers of smart toasters running Linux.
Oh, I misunderstood what you meant, sorry.
Well, maybe not a toaster, but imagine a cheap low-energy eink-based
zen-mode writing/programming machine running gcc-emacs as sole program.
Why such kind of gcc-distribution business should be discouraged by these legal
issues?
Yes, it's an hypothetical example, but you know... Twitter is a business too:
anything can happen, however unpredictable.
That's why I think the Steering Committee should be very careful while
changing the legal framework of GCC.
Giacomo
