coordinated compliance efforts addresses the issues of this thread

[Rob Landley]

On 08/26/2012 09:09 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> IMO, Tito's response is quite correct.  However, I'd add that various
> maintainers (and former maintainers) of projects have supported
> enforcement: Denys has agreed to continue enforcement on BusyBox, and
> Erik agrees -- and in fact, is very supportive -- as a former
> maintainer.  Rob, as a former maintainer, used to agree and now
> disagrees, and I respect his opinion and Conservancy doesn't enforce on
> his behalf anymore.

Heh. Interesting interpretation.

When I started the first enforcement action to deal with the backlog of
reports Erik Andersen left me in the form of the Hall of Shame, my
interest was in getting access to code. But a year of enforcement
efforts (and several code drops) didn't result in a single line of code
from any third party added to the busybox repository. I withdrew my
support from the efforts because my interest was in engineering, not
money. From an engineering perspective, the busybox enforcement suits
were a complete failure.

When you say "used to agree and now disagrees" you're implying that my
position changed. It didn't. The lawsuits demonstrated their complete
inability to serve their original purpose.

You have found other purposes: they're profitable for the lawyers, and
they make moralists feel like they're punishing bad guys who pirate
"free" software. I find this a strange definition of "free" (not libre,
not gratis). Morally, I think the FSF is on the wrong side of history
here the same way the MPAA, RIAA, patent trolls, and the "zombie rights"
trademark guys are. I thought GPL enforcement might have a pragmatic use
beyond enriching lawyers. I stopped when proven wrong.

Rob

P.S. Yes, zombie rights:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/appeals-court-rules-marilyn-monroes-image-public-estate-367160
-- 
GNU/Linux isn't: Linux=GPLv2, GNU=GPLv3+, they can't share code.
Either it's "mere aggregation", or a license violation.  Pick one.