In the time leading up to the next Kernel Summit topics are presented and discussed beforehand on the Ksummit-discuss mailing list. There [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues was introduced. Even though Linus is not subscribed to this list he speaks his mind, bluntly. A good read.
I'm not aware of anybody but the lawyers and crazy people that were happy about how the BusyBox situation ended up. Please pipe up if you actually know differently. All it resulted in was a huge amount of bickering, and both individual and commercial developers and users fleeing in droves. Botht he original maintainer and the maintainer that started the lawsuits ended up publicly saying it was a disaster.
So I think the whole GPL enforcement issue is absolutely something that should be discussed, but it should be discussed with the working title.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bug1 on Monday September 05 2016, @02:58AM
I was one of the contributors to busybox around that time, i am glad it was and still is being enforced.
Everyone has their biases (me included), but its obvious Linus is putting commercial interests ahead of the interests of users, and its also obvious that its Linus's person opinion and doesnt reflect all Linux contributors. Perhaps he is upset about enforcement because it is something he cant control.
"... we *should* talk about GPL enforcement ... No lawyers present ..."
Linus shows a total lack of respect for Lawyers, its like a bunch a users having a meeting and telling him how to run his project, if you want to achieve a reasonable outcome its best to involve the experts.
Every now and then Linus says something toxic, this is another example, nobody is perfect.
The bottom line is that iIf a license isnt enforced it serves no purpose.