[ I'm not on debian-user regularly but I was dragged into the thread by a large cc list that Bruce started. Removing individual email addresses of possible non-list members, other than Bruce. ]
Bruce, if you haven't looked at the Principles of of Community-Oriented Enforcement <https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.html>, which were co-published by Conservancy and the FSF, and endorsed by a wide range of other organizations, including FSF Europe and the OSI, you should definitely do so. The most relevant principle regarding your public post referenced in this thread is: "Confidentiality can increase receptiveness and responsiveness." You don't indicate in your blog post that you put in efforts to resolve this matter confidentially and sought compliance in a collaborative and friendly way first. That's a mistake, in my opinion. Conservancy often spends years of friendly negotiations, attempting to resolve a GPL enforcement matter before making public statements about it. We have found in our extensive experience of enforcing the GPL that early public statements sometimes thwarts not just our enforcement efforts, but the enforcement efforts of others. Finally, I have an important general statement that those concerned about violations should consider: With hundreds of known GPL violations going on around the world every day, we should as a community be careful not to over-prioritize any particular violation merely because the press becomes interested. Rather, the giant worldwide queue of known GPL violations should be prioritized by figuring out which ones, if solved, will do the most to maximize software freedom for all users. -- Bradley M. Kuhn Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy ======================================================================== Become a Conservancy Supporter today: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter