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Comment by fpgeek | Hacker News Reader

Do you have actual evidence Sony is violating (or intends to violate) the GPL with respect to non-busybox code? Or are you just speculating?

Let me put this another way: Do you think the developers behind editline wrote it because they wanted to violate the GPL? Or did they write it for some other reason?

Personally, I read the Sony post very differently. It sounds to me Sony, in part because of the aggressive stance SFC takes with busybox GPL violations, isn't happy with the business costs of using busybox (e.g. concerns among chip vendors and suppliers). They could easily be wrong in their assessment of the business costs (e.g. concerns from chip vendors and suppliers should not be taken seriously), but given that assessment, it seems to me that writing a busybox replacement is a reasonable response.

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>aggressive stance SFC takes with busybox GPL violations

I would hardly call enforcing their license an "aggressive stance". When a company enforces their right against those that violate the terms of their proprietary license it's considered "normal" but if a Free Software developer does the same thing it's considered being "aggressive"?

Sony never originally intended to comply with the requirements of the GPL. They did violate the terms of the GPL. That isn't speculation. The reason they ever complied is because they were forced to.

For those saying that there isn't a problem as long as the original authors are not willing to go to court over the violation. Think about what you are saying for a minute. You are basically saying "it's OK to pirate someones work as long as they don't enforce their license on me personally". Yes it's "piracy" as the same companies have defined it -copyright infringement-.

Let me try to be precise: I'm not characterizing enforcing the busybox license as aggressive. I'm saying that using a busybox license violation to bootstrap an investigation (and potential enforcement) related to GPLed code for which SFC does not hold the copyright is aggressive. That doesn't mean it is wrong, or even unreasonable, it is just aggressive.

Let me try an analogy: Suppose that, as part of a BSA settlement, they didn't just require you to come to terms with any BSA members whose licenses you were violating, but also with any non-BSA members whose licenses they judged you were violating. Having never had dealings with the BSA they may well do this (in the interests of drumming up new members or something). Nevertheless, I would characterize that in exactly the same way: not wrong, or even unreasonable, just aggressive.

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