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Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2

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Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2

#11

Post by forespacemou »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #2

Ok, I understand that this is trying to be decent and reasonable people here, in cases where it's truly an accident of including some GPL code. Shit happens, clean it up. If I were to do this with commercial code or assets, would they be so flexible in working with me, or do they go straight to shakedown? I'll give ye all a hint: go look at the MPAA and RIAA's views on that. I remembered when friends were back in the…

A lot of GPL violators are probably well-meaning individual hobbyists, not corporations.

I am not a lawyer, but the language as I read it does not appear to give knowing abusers a big opening. They still have to correct license violations within 1-2 months, unless they're just hoping no one does anything about the violation.

Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2

#12

Post by geofft »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #9
geofft wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One strategic reason is that it removes a disincentive to use GPL'd software. If I believe that screwing up an image build once is enough to permanently revoke my entire company's license to use Linux, the strategic thing to do is to not use Linux for anything . (I think people can legitimately disagree as to whether this disincentive is a thing people actually take into account)

I get where you're going with that line of argument. But lets take the counterpoint. How many times has Legal been introduced to go over Microsoft Windows contract/EULA? How about each other piece of software in your installation? Are you guaranteed any sort of amnesty or accident forgiveness with the BSA if they catch "incorrectly licensed software" on your network? Is the company guaranteed any sort of "fitness" if…

Microsoft has an incentive to sell licenses, though. If you're violating their license, they're much happier if you pay them for sufficient licenses than if you stop using Microsoft. So a business will understand this, and say that while in theory Microsoft could demand something unreasonable, in practice you'll be able to negotiate something (possibly even paying less than sticker cost) for the right to keep using the software you were using, so there's no realistic risk that you'll lose your ability to use MS software at all.

The average GPL software has nobody who's even in a position to be negotiated with, because it has multiple authors who aren't communicating with each other. If I violate the Linux kernel's license, who do I offer to pay to get the license reinstated? How do I make sure some individual contributor I haven't paid who disagrees with me ideologically (say I'm Northrop Grumman, or Planned Parenthood, or something) won't sue me and refuse to settle for anything short of shutting down all my infrastructure and starting from scratch?

Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2

#13

Post by sigzero »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #6
sigzero wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. This is a slide down a bad slope as people will now expect a hand slap the first time (at least).

I really think it matters in what context. If someone was hacking on a BSD based license, and included code they mistakenly mis-identified the license, I get that. It was an accident. Mention it to them as an issue or email. It's an oversight, accidents do indeed happen. It reminds me of the recent issue where nVidia copied some dev's code from their GH repo. The repo was unlicensed, but whomever did the copying incl…

Does this have to be codified in the license though? I don't think so. All parties just agree on the outcome. That's the way it works. A "free pass" shouldn't be in the license proper.

Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2

#14

Post by bluGill »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #2

Ok, I understand that this is trying to be decent and reasonable people here, in cases where it's truly an accident of including some GPL code. Shit happens, clean it up. If I were to do this with commercial code or assets, would they be so flexible in working with me, or do they go straight to shakedown? I'll give ye all a hint: go look at the MPAA and RIAA's views on that. I remembered when friends were back in the…

Depends. Lawyers often do send cease and desist letters and nothing more. If a company discovers an infringement because of the letter they will stop as quickly as they can going to court probably isn't worth the lawyer fees so it most likely will end there.

MPAA and RIAA are not a good example - they were willing to lose a lot of money enforcing their legal rights because they believed that would send an example and in turn stop everybody else. That is they were willing to spend $100,000 to get your to pay a $1,000 fine.

This return on investment is generally something most companies are not willing for. Most companies would rather spend $200 and get nothing in return (other than the infringement stopped), then spend $100,000 or more to win $1,000. I think the reasons are obvious.

Also, you don't want to be seen as a jerk. Many companies pay people to contribute to open source in some way. Some are full time, some are just as needed. Any large project that is seen as a jerk to companies is likely to find less contributors.

Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2

#15

Post by tzs »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #2

Ok, I understand that this is trying to be decent and reasonable people here, in cases where it's truly an accident of including some GPL code. Shit happens, clean it up. If I were to do this with commercial code or assets, would they be so flexible in working with me, or do they go straight to shakedown? I'll give ye all a hint: go look at the MPAA and RIAA's views on that. I remembered when friends were back in the…

> I remembered when friends were back in the Napster times shook down for a few grand.

RIAA asked infringers for about $2 per infringed song. That seems a pretty fair price--it's only about twice what it would have cost for the people to legitimately purchase copies of the music.

Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2

#16

Post by wildmusings »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #2

Ok, I understand that this is trying to be decent and reasonable people here, in cases where it's truly an accident of including some GPL code. Shit happens, clean it up. If I were to do this with commercial code or assets, would they be so flexible in working with me, or do they go straight to shakedown? I'll give ye all a hint: go look at the MPAA and RIAA's views on that. I remembered when friends were back in the…

>I remembered when friends were back in the Napster times shook down for a few grand. Same with Bittorrent's earlier years. There was no amicable "Plz quit this and were good".

The recording industry did offer an amnesty at the start of their campaign. It required you to promise to delete all existing illegally-downloaded content and promise not to engage of file sharing of copyrighted works in the future. It was called Clean Slate and very few people signed up for it, and it was criticized for various reasons, but they did offer it.

Re: Accident Forgiveness Comes to GPLv2

#19

Post by jerf »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #2

Ok, I understand that this is trying to be decent and reasonable people here, in cases where it's truly an accident of including some GPL code. Shit happens, clean it up. If I were to do this with commercial code or assets, would they be so flexible in working with me, or do they go straight to shakedown? I'll give ye all a hint: go look at the MPAA and RIAA's views on that. I remembered when friends were back in the…

Lotta philosophical reasons as siblings to my reply here, and many of them are very fine. But let me give you a practical reason this forgiveness works out well: If you want to leap straight to aggressive compliance, you're gonna need a lawyer. That will cost you. So in a world where the choices are "ignore the infringement" or "aggressively enforce it", you've got the choice of either ponying up the dough up front, or losing your licensed rights. Now, sometimes reality hands you a bum deal and there's not much you can do about it, but that's a bum deal.

If you add a third choice of "politely ask for them to comply first", then you've got a free option, that is likely (albeit not guaranteed) to produce good results, and as an added bonus, if the company blows you off you are helping your eventual lawyer-involving case when it comes time to prove they knew and infringed anyhow.

So unless you've got bored lawyers sitting around who are going to charge you no matter what you do, there is a reason to be a bit gracious first, even for you, the programmer of the GPL'ed work.

(And yes, this RedHat effort does not create this result; this has always been an option and IIRC most historical enforcement efforts that went to lawsuit first used this. But it answers the question, in very programmer-centric terms.)

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