From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id A76B59D for ; Fri, 26 Aug 2016 20:09:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from hr2.samba.org (hr2.samba.org [144.76.82.148]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C8EA228C for ; Fri, 26 Aug 2016 20:09:05 +0000 (UTC) Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2016 13:09:00 -0700 From: Jeremy Allison To: ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org Message-ID: <20160826200900.GB29084@jra3> Reply-To: Jeremy Allison References: <1472225332.2751.56.camel@redhat.com> <8737lrl8os.fsf@ebb.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <8737lrl8os.fsf@ebb.org> Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Fri Aug 26 19:03:56 UTC 2016, Linus Torvalds wrote: > So note how I said earlier that it's not an entirely black-and-white thing. > ... > We've also seen how even successful lawsuits haven't actually helped > the project involved. So there was certainly an education there too - > for the developer side. (This may also be a re-port, sorry if so - just joined the list so not sure if my previous posting of this went through). Apologies for the drive-by posting. I'm not normally on this list, but this discussion is important enough I wanted to correct the above point. The Samba project has never sued anyone over GPL-violations. We've discussed violations with companies more times than I can remember, but never had to go to court over the GPL being violated on our code. These days we rely on Conservancy doing the kind of back-room negotiation that they are really good at, and they've never failed us on this. Lawsuits *are* a last-ditch nuclear option. However, we do have experience with one successful lawsuit, which provides a good counter example to the comment above. Samba and the FSFE were the last entities standing in the Microsoft vs EU anti-trust lawsuit. We even helped cost them over $1b in fines. Next month I'll be going up to my second invite-only Microsoft plugfest of the year - this one set up specifically for the Team that sued them. I'll be visiting several of my friends there, including one of their lawyers (although the rest of them are engineers :-). The Microsoft vs EU lawsuit was not only successful, it helped the Samba project a great deal. The documentation that was released because of the lawsuit has provided impetus for a great deal of new Samba development, as well as creating a diverse marketplace of new proprietary competitors (which has helped raise everyones code and improved interop for the users). None of this would have happened without the successful lawsuit, rancorous though it was at the time (and in public too :-). So as someone said earlier, this is not an entirely black-and-white thing :-). Jeremy. Full disclosure: I'm on the Conservancy Board of Directors, so I obviously agree with their mission.