GPL Compliance Is Easier Than You Think

Bradley M. Kuhn

Wednesday 7 November 2012

My History

They Say Compliance is Hard …

The “Compliance” Industry

FUD Becomes Marketing


Coca-Cola’s by far the world’s number one soft drink, and they spend more money than anybody on advertising.

— Tracy Flick, character in the 1999 film, Election

On Requirement By License

Ever Ignored One of These?

How Badly?

What About Commercial Vehicles?

Angels Dancing on Heads of Pins


And Schibler with others, maketh the difference of extension to be this, that Angels can contract their whole substance into one part of space, and therefore have not partes extra partes. Whereupon it is that the Schoolmen have questioned how many Angels may fit upon the point of a Needle?

— Richard Baxter, The Reasons of the Christian Religion, 1667.

Not All Violations Are Equal

Egregious Violations

I Know They Won’t Be Perfect

FUD in LWN Comments


“It is possible for a mistake made by an ODM (like providing the wrong busybox source version) could result in the recall of millions of unrelated products.”


FUD in LWN Comments


“[I’ve] heard … worries about … “copyright trolls” It’s not too hard to imagine that somebody with a trollish inclination might come into possession of … © on some kernel code … shak[e] down former violators with threats of lawsuits”


Challenges of Modern Compliance

A Radical Statement

The Easy Parts of Compliance

The Only Hard Part of Compliance

On Asking for Complete Compliance

Other Requests (They’re Easy)

Money

Why Keep Doing Enforcement?

Why Keep Doing Enforcement?

Why Enforce for More Projects?

Compliance As Collaboration

Who Can Join?

Why Special Case Linux?

Please Never Forget

More Info / Talk License

Presentation and slides are: Copyright © 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Bradley M. Kuhn, and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-By-SA) 3.0 United States License.

Some images included herein are ©’ed by others. I believe my use of those images is fair use under USA © law. However, I suggest you remove such images if you redistribute these slides under CC-By-SA-USA 3.0.