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 DD8E2305 for ; Mon, 29 Aug 2016 06:26:29 +0000 (UTC) Received: from out4-smtp.messagingengine.com (out4-smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.28]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6B70210E for ; Mon, 29 Aug 2016 06:26:29 +0000 (UTC) Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:26:38 +0200 From: Greg KH To: David Woodhouse Message-ID: <20160829062638.GA12415@kroah.com> References: <20160826193331.GA29084@jra3> <87inunxf14.fsf@ebb.org> <20160827162655.GB27132@kroah.com> <87bn0dnc6f.fsf@ebb.org> <1472348609.2440.37.camel@HansenPartnership.com> <20160828042454.GA8742@jeremy-acer> <20160828125542.7oejzcbpeozkrq3k@thunk.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Cc: James Bottomley , Linus Torvalds , "Bradley M. Kuhn" , ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 02:06:44PM -0000, David Woodhouse wrote: > Even though I abhor what Patrick McHardy is doing, I still can't quite > find it in my heart to have *sympathy* for his victims. Because it's not > as if he's just taking random pot-shots at passers-by on the street. These > people defended their actions in court, and lost. No, that's not what Patrick did. Whenever he actually took something to court, _he_ lost. Companies paid him off before then because they were scared for foolish reasons, or it was honestly just cheaper to do it than go to court and win. He took the traditional model of patent troll to the next level. No one I have talked to has ever said that any of those companies were actually doing anything "wrong" with regards to the GPL at all. He just went for small companies who couldn't defend themselves. Again, just like patent trolls. Go watch the wonderful talk at the LF Collab summit this year from Lee Cheng, the lawyer from New Egg as to how he has worked really hard to stop patent trolls, and how, even if you don't do anything wrong at all, you can easily get sued by them, and how much work it takes to fight these type of things. We don't want GPL "enforcement" to ever be like patent trolls, that way is a death sentence for Linux. Just like what happened to Busybox. thanks, greg k-h