[Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues

[Jeremy Allison]

On Sat, Aug 27, 2016 at 09:18:36PM -0600, James Bottomley wrote:
> On Sat, 2016-08-27 at 16:02 -0700, Jeremy Allison via Ksummit-discuss
> wrote:
> > The GPL allows legal penalties for non-compliance. We
> > know this as there have already been such.
> > 
> > Your project has been enourmously successful - more so
> > than any other Free Software project in the world. And it
> > did so under the GPL.
> > 
> > You now appear to want to change the conditions under which
> > most contributors added code - to one that has no legal
> > penalties for non-compliance with the license.
> 
> This might also be a core issue.

I agree this is a core issue.

> I believe everyone participating in this debate agrees there
>should be consequences for non-compliance. 

That isn't clear to me at all, unless "ask again, try and
be nicer" counts as a consequence. I don't believe that it
does.

>  However, some people believe that the emphasis on "legal penalties"
> produces an escalating atmosphere that precludes other avenues.

"legal penalties" are a last, worst option - that I think
everyone agrees with. The core issue to me is - should
"legal penalties" *ever* be an option ?

My opinion (for Samba, the only area my opinion matters and
feel free to tell me to bugger off a Linux kernel list and
I'll shut up) is that they should. I would have sued the
bastards renaming my code and adding a license manager for
example :-). I'm only glad I didn't have to.