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SFLC Finds One New GPL Violation Per Day
eldavojohn writes "In July, the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) leveled the finger at Microsoft for a GPL violation but how often does this actually happen? Sunday, Brad M. Kuhn (tech director at the SFLC) stated in his blog that since August of 2009 he has been finding about one per day. So why is it that we have only covered a handful of these cases in the news? Brad offers sage wisdom; surprisingly, he recommends, 'Don't go public first. Back around late 1999, when I found my first GPL violation from scratch, I wanted to post it to every mailing list I could find and shame that company that failed to respect and cooperate with the software freedom community. I'm glad that I didn't do that, because I've since seen similar actions destroy the lines of communication with violators, and make resolution tougher.' Public shame is evidently not always the best answer. Ars has a few more details and notes that (in accordance with Brad's advice) lawsuits are usually a dead last resort."
Ah yes, another one of these stories. Expect to see some references to M$, people defending GPL and people advocating BSD. All in all, everyone will agree that respecting open source licenses is very important. Next thread, something about RIAA, same people demanding their right to download copyrighted music.
Pathetic.
Oddly enough most companies even the Evil Microsoft will much rather fix the problem without having to fight it legally, and resolve the problem civilly. When you pre-poster aggressive towards your opponent they will do the same. And if you are Not for Profit organization and you opponent is a big multi-national company, you are going to be in for a big fight where if you were just to be polite and civil about it chances are you will get your objectives, they will quietly fix their problems and save face. Most of the time these GPL violations are not done deliberately but the GPL is a strict license and for a big company you will have people putting in things that they didn't even realize was wrong. Or worse say some GPL Code was cut as a segment for a help forum and was used from that. So yes they violated the code, they probably didn't mean too, if you are nice to them they will probably fix it. If you go all out and make yourself aggressive they will be aggressive too, and put you in a case even if you win you loose.
Considering that MS is a major player in the IP enforcement racket, that's a very charitable attitude to have.
But groups like the BSA in the USA and FACT in the UK exist purely to enforce the likes of MS's EULAs. If you make a mistake with MS's licensing, and get caught by a group that actively looks for mistakes (and MS's licensing rules mean mistakes are easy to make), you will have unforeseen costs coming your way - through either suddenly having to pay for more licences, or defending yourself from being sued. The BSA/FACT exists to 1) detract from the individual companies who could well be fucking over small businesses and individuals (bad for PR), and 2) make the enforcement of their licences more efficient, by pooling the enforcement costs. Any entity that does things like this does not deserve charity.
I say if you are a copyright holder and your GPL code gets violated by a for-profit entity you should be looking to sue for as much as possible, and get the terms of the GPL fully enforced. If MS "accidentally" put some GPL code into Office, well, then Office needs to be opened and the profits so far need to be handed over to the original GPL'd code writer. And Office needs to be taken off the market. MS won't accidentally put GPL code in a product again after that.
I don't know what a court would do if you went in there, fucked over a company who had broken some rule whilst at the same time you are saying that the law is utterly unreasonable, but GPL violations are a good opportunity to publicise how fucked up IP law is.