I have detected an abuse of GPLed software...

[Alexandre Dulaunoy]

On Sun, 16 Jun 2002, Loic Dachary wrote:

> Luca Mercuri writes:
>  > Any advice as to how proceed would be greatly appreciated.
>
> 	"What do I want to achieve by issuing such a statement ?"
>
> 	Accusing someone of abusing the GNU GPL will certainly create
> a hostile climate between you and the person you accuse. It may be the
> intended purpose and in some rare cases it may even be necessary. In
> general, though, it proved a lot more efficient to use diplomacy
> instead of conflict to solve GNU GPL related problems. Instead of
> accusing someone, therefore assuming you have an ennemy, you could try
> to ask the person to cooperate with you, therefore assuming you have a
> friend.

	Yes, being openminded and friendly is really important to gain
confiance of the other parties. Another point, try to contact multiple
people inside the company (use multiple cc: and not bcc:) and excuse
you for using cross-posting (but you didn't know the real contact person
for that issue or question). Try to reach multiple people with different
positions (from VP to technical peoples) inside the company (useful for
big company).

	Another point, you can make a classical request as user for a
download url for the GPLed software. Sometimes, they don't care to provide
an url.

>
> 	It is often quite efficient to send a private mail to the
> people who did a mistake related to the GNU GPL (a mistake, not an
> abuse : the choice of words is important ;-). In this mail you can
> kindly describe how they should fix their mistake. If they are
> unresponsive after a while (let's say 3 weeks), send the mail
> again. Maybe they were too overloaded to respond, maybe the mail was
> lost, maybe they did not believe you. If they are unresponsive after a
> while (let's say 2 weeks), send the mail again and cc:
> discussion at fsfeurope.org or another public mailing list. Since your
> mail was a kind offer, absolutely not agressive, they will understand
> that this mistake is exposed to more people and may be more diligent
> to fix it. Alternatively, you can ask other people involved in Free Software
> to send them the same request. It could be Software Libero, for instance.

<friendly mode=off>
	Some mistake looks like some mistake to bypass software freedom
</friendly>

>
> 	In my experience, most of the time, possibly after a few
> months, the mistakes are fixed, Free Software is safe and noone feels
> angry.
>
> 	Cheers,
>
>