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Comment by andreasvc | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a widespread misunderstanding about GPL, and I am afraid it is the reason why businesses typically have a GPL-aversion.

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I haven't worked for Akamai for more than a decade, but at that time, I can assure you that not only were there lawyers who thoroughly understood the GPL, but there were many, many engineers who would not have remained silent for a breach of the terms. Assuming that culture to have continued -- and I see no reason why it would not -- Akamai should be up there with Red Hat in terms of license compliance.

I haven't been there for almost two years, even then, I'm sure most engineers wouldn't have stood silent if an OSS license was being violated... unless their managers made them afraid for their jobs and careers for doing so. Oh, and getting permission to submit a simple patch made to an otherwise completely GPL'd piece of software was always an exercise in frustration. Send the necessary info to legal. Wait 3-6 months for them to say no. Lather, rinse, repeat. It was pretty damn bad while I was there.

Now, my current employer... Email your manager: "I wrote this entirely in-house and would like to open-source it." Manager: "OK, let's talk to Legal" Legal: "OK, get at least one other person to verify that it doesn't contain any trade secrets and sign this." Upload to github. Done.

And submitting patches upstream - just a matter of code-review and sending it out. Now that's OSS-friendly.

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