Maybe disclosure of the sum paid to the developers would help, iff that sum is high (for the infringing party, which is not really probable).
Anyway, I don’t think that a “binding legal precedent” is needed at all. Legally, the GPL is fully enforceable, and this settlement only proves that (or else why did the company pay?). What is needed is some of the infringing party’s blood. I mean, let it be known that it really cost them more than just complying from the beginning, so there is incentive not to infringe. The legal incentive is already there (nobody would like defend a GPL violation). What’s missing is a harder incentive…
What I do find disappointing nevertheless is the particular remedy chosen… starting from the title, it sucks! “Open Source Compliance Officer” what about non-OS licenses? I though it was the Software FREEDOM Law Center who acted on the case (why not using “Free Software” instead of “Open Source”? I know it’s asking too much, but they got to choose the conditions). Furthermore, is that really needed? Is it that hard to comply? I mean, come on, you’ve gone and developed a full product, taking care of so many aspect, either technical or otherwise, can’t you just know that you need to comply with the licenses of the software you used? Is that the message we would like to spread? That Open Source licensing is somehow black magic?

my 2 cents (anyway I’m glad they reached a settlement)

nachokb

The thing is, once we finally got Monsoon’s attention they were eager to come into compliance. It just took a while to _do_ once lawyers were involved. We’re not going to rake them over the coals to try to squeeze a legal precedent out of the system when they _want_ to come into compliance. Actual villains like SCO (both antisocial, stupid, and belligerent enough to go all the way in court against a volunteer community they’re benefitting from) are few and far between.

The financial payment is in the low five figures. It’s basically lawyers fees, they’re paying it to the SFLC (not directly to either of us), and it’s being paid in installments over several months. We have no interest in putting Monsoon out of business; they didn’t get away scott free but it isn’t more than they can afford either.

The SFLC offered to pass some or all of this on to Erik and/or myself, and I at least have declined. It might wind up being held by the SFLC’s conservancy on BusyBox’s behalf, and current maintainer Denis Vlasenko might eventually find a use for the money to help the project somehow. I dunno, not my call.

This is very _unlikely_ to be the last lawsuit the SFLC files on our behalf. But they’re also settling lots of these things behind the scenes.

The takeaway from all this is that open source projects like BusyBox and uClibc can delegate license enforcement to the SFLC, and license enforcement will in fact happen. Pro bono. And with no strings attached (I.E. BusyBox is GPLv2, not v3, so the FSF wouldn’t touch us, but the SFLC is still happy to represent us). This is REALLY COOL.

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