Amusing article about busybox

[Felipe Contreras]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 7:06 AM, Rogelio Serrano
<rogelio.serrano at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Felipe Contreras
>>> thats very interesting... so i can use linux in my product and not
>>> tell anyone about it?
>>
>> Huh? It doesn't matter if people know that you are using Linux or not.
>> In order for a lawsuit to get started, I'd assume it has to be started
>> or blessed by the damaged parties; the copyright owners. Since the
>> copyright owners, Linux developers, have no interest in any of this,
>> you can't sue a company for not distributing Linux's sources, unless
>
> wait, WHAT! thats so troublesome for me in so many ways...

The copyright owner owns the code, and he can do whatever he wants it
it, including to allow a company that violated the GPL to keep
distributing the program without publishing the sources. Say, the
company gives some kind of remuneration in return for a custom
(non-GPL) license. It's all up to the owner.

The law would get involved only when the damaged party requests so.
Somebody might have punched me in the face, but I don't press charges,
nobody can do it for me. In a divorce, the wife doesn't want any of
the money from the husband, nobody can threat legal action to get it.

The GPL license is a contract between the copyright owner and the user
of the code (i.e. the company), only the damaged party (the copyright
owner) can make any claims. Linux developers are not interested in
enforcement, therefore nobody can do legal threats on their behalf...
Unless by GPL proxy, which exploits the loophole that they haven't
explicitly said they don't want enforcement either.

Cheers.

-- 
Felipe Contreras