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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) by bzipitidoo on Monday September 05 2016, @02:27PM
There is a semantics issue, yes. Is Humble Bundle merely passing on the savings achieved with digital distribution, but are still fundamentally selling copies? And what a savings it is from the days of a new release being $60 for a box with a CD/DVD or 3, and sometimes no manual because they want to squeeze the customers for more for that, to $0.25 or thereabouts per game! Or are they actually crowdfunding, sort of a late crowdfunding because the wares are already finished, rather than an early crowdfunding to raise money needed for development?
Consider that one of their selling points is "no DRM". And sometimes, even source code. Not that DRM is effective, but still. And yes, they have collaborated with "DRM done right" Steam, so their claim of no DRM at all is a little gray. Once released, copies of Humble Bundle offerings can be readily available on line, for free, and they look the other way. From a legal standpoint they are selling copies, yes, but de facto, one could argue that what they are really doing is "late crowdfunding".