>> > Why would you need to wait years? >> > > A previous reply (from Adonay) had suggested the effort before starting > a lawsuit might take years
If things are moving along swiftly without the help of courts, then it needn't take years. If there is attrition then it might be that one needs to seek the help of the courts to help move the matter along more swiftly. > Do you mean that is the approach taken when the intellectual property > rights have been granted to the FSF? I am talking about works for which the FSF is the copyright holder. As the licensing & compliance manager at the FSF, it is my job to receive and act on reports of license violations for works the FSF holds copyright, and to work with violators to ensure compliance. I follow the instructions and procedures set by FSF management and our general counsel. In my previous email I provided a brief overview of our the general procedure we follow when enforcing the terms of GNU licenses on free programs and free manuals. We recommend avoiding the term IP: <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html>. > I fully agree that any negotiation should start out in good faith and in > the hope that it has been a misunderstanding. Law suits should not be > motivated by greed or vindictiveness either. At any time, if the > violator agrees to make good, a law suit can be withdraw. In our experience, we have had a fair amount of success in following The Principles of Community-Based GPL Enforcement <https://www.fsf.org/licensing/enforcement-principles> which puts taking legal action as a last resort. However, as we state in the principles, "In particular, this list of principles purposely does not seek to create strict criteria and/or “escalation and mediation rules” for enforcement action. Efforts to do that limit the ability of copyright holders to use copyleft licenses for their intended effect: to stand up for the rights of users to copy, modify, and redistribute free software." If in your experience you have found taking legal action sooner rather than later in the process has been a successful strategy for you when doing free software license enforcement, then we certainly are not going to fault you or try to say you are doing it wrong. In fact, it is incredibly valuable to the FSF to learn from others who have experience in doing license enforcement on free works. If you would be willing and able to speak with us about your experience in enforcing the licensing terms of freely licensed works, we would certainly appreciate that. If so, please follow-up with me offlist and we can can arrange a time that works best for you and my colleagues to talk. Of course we understand if you agreed to an NDA in a settlement and can't speak of specifics, but, such an NDA shouldn't preclude you from sharing a link to the initial filing in court if you did bring suit against a violator so even if you were to only share that with us (offlist if you prefer) that would be valuable info to us. Best, Josh