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

[Harald Welte]

Hi Greg,

On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 08:26:38AM +0200, Greg KH wrote:

> No one I have talked to has ever said that any of those companies were
> actually doing anything "wrong" with regards to the GPL at all.

I'm not sure whether this is generally true.  As somebody very concerned
about "bad" enforcement and the fall-out it can generate, and also as
somebody who has maybe even set the example on how to do GPL enforcement
(in Germany) at all, I have had a look at some of the (few) cases that
actually went to court, and actually also attended one of the court
hearings (against Telefonica) in person.  And the reason he lost (or
rather backed out before loosing) that particular one was merely based
on procedural mistakes, and not on merits of the case.  Unfortunately
the detailed legal briefs and filings of lawsuits in Gemany are not
published (and to the contrary, they are copyrighted works of the
lawyers who write them), so it is rather hard to know what actually
happened.

So yes, there are all kinds of allegations and rumours about what
Patrick did or didn't do.  With none of the parties involved talking
about what actually happened, it is difficult to get down to the truth.

The biggest problem that I actually see in terms of Patrick's
enforcement that he didn't talk about it, and hence created an
atmosphere where rumours, fear, uncertainty and doubt can dominate the
discussions.  His unwillingness to explain himself even within the
netfilter developers or the netfilter core team were also the reason why
he ultimately was suspended.

> He just went for small companies who couldn't defend themselves.

This is getting more and more off-topic, but I wouldn't e.g. call
Telefonica a "small company".

> We don't want GPL "enforcement" to ever be like patent trolls, that way
> is a death sentence for Linux.

This is very clear, and that's what the SFC has spearheaded with it's
"principles of community-oriented enforcement".

So yes, if the allegations against Patrick are true, then it is
something where probably everyone in this discussion thread agrees it is
far outside the consensus of when or how enforcement should be done.
But it is exactly because it is _against_ what the SFC stands for, not
because the SFC is in any way doing anything that can be compared to the
alleged activities of Patrick McHardy.

Regards,
	Harald
-- 
- Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org>           http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
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