Busybox and GPL

[Vic]

> In your (and other readers') personal opinion, is it good or bad
> that we are getting this kind of "PR"?

Overall - good.

There are still people who believe that GPL means "public domain". These
people need to be disabused of this erroneous belief.

At the same time, there are those that believe that GPL covers absolutely
everything in the aggregation. These people also need to be shown the
error of their ways.

Unfortunately, there are some who will only take away the message that
BusyBox has a legal risk to it. They conveniently forget that abusing the
licence of a proprietary piece of software is far more likely to land you
in legal difficulties...

> One important detail that the company which was violating GPL
> in this particular case is bankrupt at the moment; do we look bad
> by making its life even harder? -

We run the risk of looking irrelevant; it looks like a Pyhrric victory.

However, the next one (Best Buy) won't.

>> Westinghouse Digital Electronics was also ordered to hand over
>> equipment in its possession that contained GPL code
>> and forbidden to distribute devices which contained
>> the BusyBox software.
>
> Your thoughts?

We need to watch for web sites discussing this case, and be ready to
correct any flagrant nonsense in both articles and in comments. Some of
this will be ignorance, some astroturfing :-(

Vic.