Mike Linksvayer

Mike Linksvayer at

I commented on that HN thread you linked to, @Mlinksva.

I include its contents below for pump.io readers:

I've devoted most of my career to upholding the software freedom that the GPL ensures. I have worked with Rob Landley in the past who is mentioned on this thread. I think Rob has some facts wrong about BusyBox enforcement. The most notable one is his claim that "no new source code got released".

In fact, we get "new source code" all the time from GPL enforcement efforts. The thing is, it's admittedly not often upstreamable source. A lot of the modifications to source done by redistributors of GPL'd software is not really well formed nor suitable for upstream. It's that classic kind of "it just works, but it's ugly" code.

This is particular true with regard to the "scripts to control compilation and installation of the executiable" which is a required part of the complete, corresponding source, provision of which the GPL mandates.

Situations like the WRT54G (the GPL enforcement source release of which launched the OpenWRT project) and the Samsung TV lawsuit that I helped do (which launched the SammyGo project are excellent examples of what great things happen when the GPL is enforced: reaching the promise of copyleft, which is hackable devices downstream.

This is why I've spent(and probably will spend) most of my professional life enforcing the GPL.

This post here is about a few specific issues, but if you want more general information on the topic, dalke's link to my talk is probably helpful. Also, here's links to the docket of the largest GPL enforcement lawsuit ever done, Conservancy v. Best Buy et al.

BTW, sorry for jumping into this thread. I'm kinda the Kibo of Free Software licensing discussion online; I'm not an HN regular but mlinksva linked me to this.

Bradley M. Kuhn at 2014-04-11T13:53:02Z

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