Comment by hiAndrewQuinn

Comment by hiAndrewQuinn 2 months ago

I've long wondered why FOSS developers of successful software don't offer some kind of financial bounty for whistleblowers who reveal that a given legal entity is violating the terms of their license.

Like, I release pretty much everything I create into the extended public domain (CC0/the Unlicense/0BSD), so I very intentionally have no dog in this race, but for those who make different choices for me regarding their public contributions, it just seems logical. Maybe it's just impossible to sue someone for violation of the GPL in a way which makes it easy to come out financially ahead, though.

delusional 2 months ago

How would you pay for the bounty? It seems hard to argue that you sustained any damages in the violation, and that's usually the only thing you can ask for in a civil suit. Additionally, you just invented another thing for developers to maintain.

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hiAndrewQuinn 2 months ago

Yup, as hinted at in my comment. Seems tough.
They could sue or try to settle out of court to get the company's own code to get licensed under the GPL, which seems like something they'd want as well.
In that sense an open bounty is like putting a price tag on how much you really care, in terms of hours of your life you're willing to spend (indirectly) enforcing the rules you have set.

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baq 2 months ago

Ah gotta love the percentage of gross revenue clause of the GPL in the violations section.

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- hiAndrewQuinn 2 months ago
  
  Man, I actually went looking for that. I bet some of us here could've made a killing bringing violators to justice if such a thing existed.
  
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jackdaniel 2 months ago

Underpaid FOSS devs offering financial bounties so they can attempt to sue offenders sounds to me quite surreal.

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