amicus_curious wrote:
I simply made the comment long ago that the BusyBox authors and their
lawsuits were useless activities that gave FOSS a bad name. All that
anyone has been able to assert, yourself included, is that the GPL
demands that a user follow its exact rules to the letter.
Authors who license their code under the GPL believe that users
should have the right to run, read, modify, and share software.
Through the GPL, they can assure that users have these rights at
least for the software to which they hold copyright.
When a user has only a binary delivered without GPL notification
he cannot read or modify it, and does not know he is permitted to
share it. For people who value the freedom of users, this problem
outweighs other considerations. The hurt feelings of those who do
not deal properly with licensed software are hardly paramount when
compliance is so trivially easy.
The purpose of free software, as envisioned by the FSF and embodied
in the GPL, is for users to have the four freedoms. It does the FSF
no good to have a good reputation if that reputation is acquired by
allowing users to be denied the four freedoms.