Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Linus Speaks His Mind on GPL Enforcement

posted by cmn32480 on Sunday September 04 2016, @12:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-is-usually-sugarcoated dept.

JaKe writes:

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.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Linus Speaks His Mind on GPL Enforcement | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 54 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by Techwolf on Monday September 05 2016, @02:22PM

    by Techwolf (87) on Monday September 05 2016, @02:22PM (#397795)

    Um...I did not know busybox was involved with lawsuits...can someone clarify? So far, the comments nor the articial explains what happened.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday September 06 2016, @05:54AM

    by Arik (4543) on Tuesday September 06 2016, @05:54AM (#397989) Journal
    Companies routinely rip busybox, got caught at it, admitted it, still refused to comply.

    Have to be sued. Listened to the GPL trolls I guess, oh, it's communist, it's unconstitutional, you can't possibly make me comply!

    Court saw no issue enforcing it. GPL vindicated.

    Corporate shills and anti-GPL trolls went overtime in response. It's so horrible! Companies are afraid to steal our code, lock it up, then sell it back to us as a black box! How horrible.

    My take is it was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful. And if Linus is actually angry that the license which made his career possible was enforced against blatant scofflaws then HE is the one that's crazy. Or worse.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?