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Understanding the New Red Hat-IBM-Google-Facebook GPL Enforcement Announcement (perens.com)
Bruce Perens co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric Raymond -- and he's also Slashdot reader #3872. Bruce Perens writes: Red Hat, IBM, Google, and Facebook announced that they would give infringers of their GPL software up to a 30-day hold-off period during which an accused infringer could cure a GPL violation after one was brought to their attention by the copyright holder, and a 60 day "statute of limitations" on an already-cured infringement when the copyright holder has never notified the infringer of the violation. In both cases, there would be no penalty: no damages, no fees, probably no lawsuit; for the infringer who promptly cures their infringement.
Perens sees the move as "obviously inspired" by the kernel team's earlier announcement, and believes it's directed against one man who made 50 copyright infringement claims involving the Linux kernel "with intent to collect income rather than simply obtain compliance with the GPL license."
Unfortunately, "as far as I can tell, it's Patrick McHardy's legal right to bring such claims regarding the copyrights which he owns, even if it doesn't fit Community Principles which nobody is actually compelled to follow."
Perens sees the move as "obviously inspired" by the kernel team's earlier announcement, and believes it's directed against one man who made 50 copyright infringement claims involving the Linux kernel "with intent to collect income rather than simply obtain compliance with the GPL license."
Unfortunately, "as far as I can tell, it's Patrick McHardy's legal right to bring such claims regarding the copyrights which he owns, even if it doesn't fit Community Principles which nobody is actually compelled to follow."
If your goal is having as many users as possible, you don't set out to use the GPL. Inherent in that choice you are rejecting some users in favor of gaining a better bargain for everyone else. The Kernel Team still has trouble dealing with this.
Bruce Perens.
They may or may not have been worse than Hitler, but Hitler is not worse than Hitler.
To be less flippant:
Of Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and Muhammad it seems that Hitler is the only one who sought to murder millions of people as a matter of policy, on principle as it were. The others murdered millions of people, evidently many more millions in the cases of Stalin and Mao, incidentally. The moral import of this escapes me. To be in fear is to be in fear. To be murdered is to be murdered. The scale of the crimes defies my ability to assess or differentiate.
Creating a Laches (which is what you are talking about) isn't really the same as placing something in the public domain. Laches means you waited for economic demand for the infringing product to develop before you brought the lawsuit, presumably to enrich your income. It doesn't apply to the next new infringer to come along.
Also, be careful not to confuse it with trademarks going into the public domain.
Bruce Perens.