On Sat, 2016-08-27 at 21:40 -0700, Jeremy Allison via Ksummit-discuss
wrote:
> 
> "legal penalties" are a last, worst option - that I think
> everyone agrees with. The core issue to me is - should
> "legal penalties" *ever* be an option ?

As I said before, they have to be an option.

Because otherwise you basically don't have a negotiating position at
all.

The GPL gives a *legal* framework under which a party is required to do
certain things. You can't even point that fact out to a violator
without *some* kind of implicit suggestion that they might be held to
their legal obligations.

If all it took was "it'll be good for you and everyone else is doing
it" then we wouldn't actually need the GPL licence at all; a BSD
licence would be sufficient.

And if we added a clause to the kernel's COPYING file which made it
says that "legally you have to release source... but we promise we'll
never sue if you don't", then that basically *turns* it into a BSD
licence for most purposes.

Legal penalties are a last worst option. Absolutely. But they have to
*be* an option.

-- 
dwmw2