Tracking GPL Violators

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week, open source developer Harald Welte made headlines when he personally served warning letters to 13 technology companies for alleged GPL violations. Now in a ZDNet interview, Welte explains the challenges behind tracking down these violators and how he persuades them to comply."

Comments

Re:Good reasons for chosing GPL over BSD

[hacker]

"I've written many free software tools over the years. I've licensed these using the GPL, BSD licenses, and finally switched a couple of years ago to GPL for everything."

There's one other small subtle reason why the BSDL is more restrictive than the GPL.. it encourages people to use the code without proper attribution or credit, while the GPL does not have this problem.

BSDL-licensed code can be abused, and in most cases, is. There is no incentive to contribute back to the community, and many commercial companies using BSDL-licensed code continue to do so every day.

The GPL, being the "more-free" license, does not allow this kind of abuse.

Re:Enforcement

[nurb432]

Until its challenged it has no legal weight.

You may *think* it does, and you may act as such, but until a judge actually rules on it its all just supposition..

Personally I don't think it holds water, and ill do whatever I please with any code that was released. It's the price you pay for letting people see your code.

Don't like it? Sue me, i didnt agree to your license and since you didnt force me to prove i read it and agreed before i viewed your code, you lose.