22 lines
1.1 KiB
Plaintext
22 lines
1.1 KiB
Plaintext
Strategies in practical GPL enforcement
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Enforcement of copyleft licenses like the GNU GPL has always been a
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somewhat controversial topic. Some people are not in favor of
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enforcement at all (but then, why choose the GPL and not a permissive
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license?). Other people have less inhibitions in enforcing the
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license. But then this raises the next questions? Enforcement using
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which strategy? Enforcement using which methods? The Linux Kernel
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developer community has recently re-fueled that debate on the
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ksummit-discuss mailing list.
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Ultimately, most projects and developers are looking for the
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downstream developers and companies to participate in a collaborative
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development model. The copyleft principle is just a legal "hack" to
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codify some part of that based on copyright. As a result, license
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compliance is not an end in itself, but the very bare legal minimum of
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what needs to be done when engaging in (particularly
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corporate/commercial) re-use of Free Software.
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This talk will look at the different (GPL) license enforcement
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approaches and present their advantages and disadvantages.
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