[ Resend to make sure this message appears in public archive. ] Denys Vlasenko forwarded a comment from Tim Bird, which was Posted Feb 1, 2012 6:52 UTC (Wed) by tbird20d on LWN: >> Tim Bird says this: No. You misunderstand what "unrelated products" >> means. It means all the TV sets and digital cameras, which we >> properly release GPL source for. What I don't want is for some >> trivial mistake by GPL amateurs at some ODM supplier to some obscure >> product group to result in SFC having review and veto authority over >> our major Linux-based product lines. This is simply unacceptable.
I think Tim is pretty confused here, as I can't relate what he's saying above with Conservancy's usual enforcement work. Tim has never been involved with a Conservancy enforcement action, so I believe Tim's retelling half-true stories that he's heard elsewhere, and there's a misunderstanding about what was required. >> ...Sony has standards in place that product teams are supposed to >> follow for GPL compliance. Unfortunately, I can't be sure that every >> team is following them, or won't make a mistake. In particular, I can >> 't be sure of this for sub-contractors. Sub-contractors may claim >> they have given you corresponding source, but have not. It happens. I think it's somewhat strange for a large company to say: "We can't control what my company does". They have resources thousands upon thousands of times greater than Conservancy, yet we can find the time to review their product and give them feedback. Surely they have the resources to fix their compliance problems? >> What is intolerable is having a 3rd party hold your entire product >> line hostage, based on some issue with an unrelated product. I have no idea what he means by "hold a product line hostage". Perhaps it's related to the fact that elsewhere in the LWN thread, some statements made references to "pulling products off the shelves". This has never happened with Conservancy's enforcement. In fact, we usually ask for the violator to set their own deadlines for when they can come into compliance. We know that it sometimes takes a few months to get a compliant source release; we're happy to work with violators about deadlines. To my knowledge, Tim has no first-hand knowledge of Conservancy's enforcement efforts. So, how does he know what our requirements are at all? >> Well, since the SFC requests audit rights for all of a company's >> products that include GPL, I don't think the fear is irrational. Again, I don't know what Tim means here by "audit rights". Conservancy does ask to talk about other products, and help the company come fully into compliance, but that's not "audit rights". I believe that Tim is exaggerating half-true stories he's heard second- or third-hand. I'll add that Tim has never contacted me and asked to talk with me about Conservancy's enforcement. I've reached out to him in the past, and he's ignored my emails. I think it's pretty unfair for someone to criticize without first-hand discussions with the relevant parties. I'm going to the same conference as Tim for the first time in a week (Embedded Linux Conference 2012). I'll try to talk with him directly about the issues. -- Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
