First Test Still Going
It appears that I jumped the gun on my reporting that the first court test of the GPL had been side stepped. Looks like Monsoon Multimedia is going to comply, but BusyBox and the SFLC aren’t going to let them off the hook for past transgressions. Looks like they’re going to go for some sort of settlement as punishment to Monsoon Multimedia. As Daniel Ravicher says in this article, “Simply coming into compliance now is not sufficient to settle the matter, because that would mean anyone can violate the license until caught, because the only punishment would be to come into compliance.”
I fully agree. Breaking the law until you’re caught should result in punishment of some sort. It would be like letting a serial thief off the hook because he promises not to do it again after being caught red handed. There needs to be some sort of down-side to stealing something that someone else was kind enough to allow you to use for free.
Of course, I’ll keep you apprised as developments continue.
