On 06/11/2015 08:13 PM, Jeff Haran wrote:
On 06/11/2015 07:26 PM, Ruben Safir wrote:
Not at all. You have a good point there are definitely legal situations other than relicensing which are problematic.
Lets say Apple decides that are going to take the Linux Kernel and alter it extensively, in order for it to work with a new hardware platform that they created. And lets say don't return the code base to the public. Now who is going to protect the license and sue them? You have literaly thousands of partiticpants who have standing now in this case.
That means a thousand possible plaintiffs.
s/Apple/VMware/ and you get this:
I don't see in that web site the amount of damages they are asking for. Maybe I missed it.
They are not asking for damages, but for license compliance.
Might get more money coming in for the plaintiff's lawyers if instead of asking for contributions that yield a tee shirt, it was constructed more like an investment, as in X% of total "contributions" gets the investor X% of (damages - legal fees) should they win.
I suspect that is not possible, since not every Linux kernel copyright holder will want to be part of a lawsuit (of any kind). The Conservancy is a non-profit. The defendants usually end up paying the legal costs (and sometimes a contribution for help with GPL compliance), but starting new actions is something that is funded by people like us, who care about preserving the GPL license. -- All rights reversed.