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Legal Group Releases Guide To GPL Compliance
An anonymous reader brings news that the Software Freedom Law Center has published a guide for compliance with the GNU General Public License. The purpose of the guide is to prevent "common mistakes" the SFLC has encountered during its various GPL violation investigations. Their suggestions include close scrutiny of software acquisitions, more precise tracking of changes and updates, and avoiding "build gurus." They also provide tips for dealing with a violation. The full guide is available at the SFLC's website.
"RMS has tended to say that the letter of the GPL is less important than its spirit"
Which is completely irrelevant when someone sues you... which the authors of this document have been doing lately. They seem to have had cause under the license, that isn't my point. My point is whatever RMS says, you need to be in compliance or there are consequences... so yes, the BSD license might turn out to be better since I'm beginning to get the feeling that the risk isn't worth it if it takes 15 pages and after reading them we come away with the advice "get some indemnity and only hire experts".