Amusing article about busybox

[Rich Felker]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 04:33:20PM +0200, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 7:06 AM, Rogelio Serrano
> <rogelio.serrano at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Felipe Contreras
> >>> thats very interesting... so i can use linux in my product and not
> >>> tell anyone about it?
> >>
> >> Huh? It doesn't matter if people know that you are using Linux or not.
> >> In order for a lawsuit to get started, I'd assume it has to be started
> >> or blessed by the damaged parties; the copyright owners. Since the
> >> copyright owners, Linux developers, have no interest in any of this,
> >> you can't sue a company for not distributing Linux's sources, unless
> >
> > wait, WHAT! thats so troublesome for me in so many ways...
> 
> The copyright owner owns the code, and he can do whatever he wants it
> it, including to allow a company that violated the GPL to keep
> distributing the program without publishing the sources. Say, the
> company gives some kind of remuneration in return for a custom
> (non-GPL) license. It's all up to the owner.
> 
> The law would get involved only when the damaged party requests so.
> Somebody might have punched me in the face, but I don't press charges,
> nobody can do it for me. In a divorce, the wife doesn't want any of
> the money from the husband, nobody can threat legal action to get it.
> 
> The GPL license is a contract between the copyright owner and the user
> of the code (i.e. the company), only the damaged party (the copyright
> owner) can make any claims. Linux developers are not interested in
> enforcement, therefore nobody can do legal threats on their behalf...
> Unless by GPL proxy, which exploits the loophole that they haven't
> explicitly said they don't want enforcement either.

I think you've misrepresented the "loophole" a bit. There's no way
Busybox copyright holders can *force* the infringing party to comply
with the GPL on Linux. If it went to court, all the Busybox copyright
holders could do is get an injunction against further distribution of
Busybox and collect damages for the infringement that already
happened, and only if those damages were sufficient to bankrupt and
buy out the infringing company could Busybox stop the infringement
against Linux.

Of course the idea is that you don't go to court, but instead settle
out of court, and that the terms of the settlement require the
infringing party to fix their GPL compliance issues on all software
they're using, not just Busybox. Thus, compliance with the GPL on
Linux becomes a contractual obligation (per the settlement) to the
Busybox copyright holders, in addition to the (unenforced) obligation
to the Linux copyright holders.

Rich