> The RIPEM author would be vicariously liable for those violations. I don't think so? As you noted, part of the source code would have no purpose other than

> The RIPEM author would be vicariously liable for those violations. I don't think so? As you noted, part of the source code would have no purpose other than interacting with GPL'd code. Therefore, the RIPEM source would necessarily be a derivative work and thus fall under the GPL itself. So the RIPEM author would be guilty of distributing source code with a bogus and misleading licensing statement at the top. Which might get them into legal trouble I guess? If someone was misled and suffered damages as a result, they could presumably turn around and sue the RIPEM developer. Or maybe not. I don't know. A thought experiment. Clone the Linux kernel repository. Add a single small changeset for something fairly trivial. Then change every instance of the GPL in the repository to the WTFPL instead. Build and redistribute the resulting binary alongside your adulterated sources. Also (nitpicking) you used the phrase "GPL violating binaries" which AFAIK isn't a thing. To be fair, you do later acknowledge the fact that the existence of binaries themselves doesn't violate the GPL, just the act of redistributing them without the source code.