There are other reasons not to do GPL enforcement too, which Greg K-H sums up very well: <a href="https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/2016-August/003578.html" rel="nofollow">https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/...</a><p>Summary: Open Source lives and dies by community and engagement. Lawsuits make people disengage. Better to spend your resources working with people to get them to come around gently.
It's frustrating that in every software licensing thread on HN people utterly miss the point of the GPL. It's not there for developers, or businesses, it's there for users.<p><i>GPL protects users' freedoms</i>. Like the freedom to use it however they like (no 90-page EULA), the freedom to actually know what's running on their computer, freedom to change it and share changes.<p>But what is most annoying here is TFA doesn't really talk about this either. Protecting users is another factor when weighing up GPL enforcement strategies. If you put GPL code in a pacemaker that millions of people have, there's a very strong argument to ensure users of that can inspect the source.
Written by Luis Villa [1] a lawyer with 15+ years of experience working with opens source communities.<p>[1] <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/luis_in_140/status/841073636127662080" rel="nofollow">https://mobile.twitter.com/luis_in_140/status/84107363612766...</a>
As I was reading this, I started thinking those options enable a company to exert influence over others in a way that a BSD or MIT license do not. It almost seemed like an argument to prefer the GPL - at least for major contributors.
Everyone wants an easy and stress free life. If you create a reputation for yourself of chasing competitors through the courts then you make yourself into a target. "Do to others as you would have them do to you".