Re:The time has come to stand up for the GPL
by davidgerard on Friday March 06, 2015 @10:18AM
(#9157373)
Note that BusyBox has won every case they've brought. The GPL is pretty well written.
The worse thing is that when one of the developers tried to write a non-GPL version of BusyBox they were criticised for "taking away the only relevant tool for copyright enforcement of the Software Freedom Conservancy group" - they're as bad as patent trolls.
Lots of companies open source their products under the AGPL with a commercial license they sell. This allows them to say their products are 'open source' and look good, but in reality it hampers their own product. If I wanted to commercialise that product and make changes, I can open source the changes, but I won't sign the original companies CLA which means they can't take my code and use it in their commercial version.
This lawsuit will be interesting though, as it will probably set a precedent on how you can use GPL software in commercial software.