BT says 'enough' on GPL

I wonder if they would be acting so irresponsibly about this violation if Microsoft or some other big corporation threatened to sue them over infringement.

Looks like some still don't take GPL seriously enough. Maybe they really *should* be sued to learn the lesson.

I may not know all the details of the case, but judging from this article BT is being quite irresponsible about it.

I think you're to nice libervis. Companies developing non-free software usually utilise the term "piracy". If those clueless manager would be made aware of their behaviour being "piracy" just like some teenager copying a holywood movie, perhaps they would change their mind.

Piracy is robbing ships at the high seas. It's copyright infringement. If the MAFIAA ever tries to sue me for piracy I'll don myself a pirate's suit to court. Yarrrwww!!!!

when in Rome.....

I usually enjoy using the language of T3h 3n3my (tm) against them. Has the benefit that they understand it better than some proper compsci slang, as well.

Pirates it is, yarrrrr.

Is the FSF Europe the actual owner of the code in question? Since one of the items of contention is a missing Makefile, who actually has standing to bring suit against BT?

I'm not sure that we will ever see this go to court, but it will be interesting if we do.

The makefile is used to build the kernel and firmware. The copyright on it doesn't matter. Because you can't build the kernel without the makefile, not providing it violates the kernel license. I'm sure code belonging to FSF was used in the firmware, so the FSF has standing in the issue.

GPLViolations.org and the FSF both take similar approaches to enforcing the GPL. Both organizations attempt to notify the copyright holders, and to enforce the GPL on their behalf or in conjunction with them or something like that. As far as I know, the copyright holder has to bring the suit against BT. If that is the FSF, then you can bet they will take it to court if necessary.