6 ms·
> So what? If it makes them comply then I'm fine with it. An infringement lawsuit can't make anyone comply because a court will only ever order an infringer to
by bdowling 5y ago
> So what? If it makes them comply then I'm fine with it.
An infringement lawsuit can't make anyone comply because a court will only ever order an infringer to pay monetary damages. An infringer might settle a lawsuit by agreeing to comply with GPL terms instead of paying damages, but that's not something a court would order.
Theoretically, if the GPL were a contract (an exchange of promises) and not a license (a grant subject to conditions), then a court could order a party in breach to comply with its terms. A court would only do that, however, if monetary damages were insufficient to compensate the non-breaching party.
- pabs3 5y agoCourts can also deliver injunctions, "specific performance" and similar non-financial remedies, not just monetary remedies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_remedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_remedy The Conservancy lawsuit against Vizio contends that the GPL is also a contract and that downstream users are third-party beneficiaries of that contract, so they should be able to sue for compliance with the contract. Its a really interesting approach and I hope they win. I encourage you to read the court documents, they make for interesting reading. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html Also, monetary damages are pretty much always insufficient in GPL cases, since money doesn't get you source code. I guess if the money was enough to pay for reverse engineering and reimplementation of the fixes/features present in the non-compliant codebase, then they could be enough.
- bdowling 5y ago> I guess if the money was enough to pay for reverse engineering and reimplementation of the fixes/features present... Exactly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]