"And yet, surprisingly, the Free Software Foundation has been
very reluctant to take those who violate the licence's terms to
court, preferring, instead, to adopt a softly-softly approach. As
Eben Moglen, the main architect of the FSF's legal policy, told me
back in 2000, when I interviewed him for Rebel Code:
"About a dozen times a year," Moglen says, "somebody does
something [that] violates the GPL. Most of the time, they're doing
so inadvertently, they haven't thought through what the
requirements are. And I call them them and I say, 'Look, you're
violating the GPL. What you need to do is this. Would you help
us?'" The answer is invariably yes, he says.
"What is true," Moglen admits, "is that no large American
software company has engaged in a public controversy with us over
the enforcement of the GPL." And although some might conclude "that
means...there's something about the GPL [that] is not enforceable,
I would turn that proposition around," Moglen says. "There have
been no such controversies because nobody thinks they're going to
in them."
