Publishing exploits in retaliation to GPL violators?

[John Sullivan]

"Bradley M. Kuhn" <bkuhn at sfconservancy.org> writes:

> So, the issue I'm left pondering after this incident is a different one than
> I originally raised.  Namely, should adherence to the Principles by anyone
> other than a copyright holder and/or someone/some-org who does enforcement
> on behalf of actual copyright holders?  Should we really expect a frustrated
> users to report a violation to FSF and/or Conservancy, then just wait years
> for their rightful source code -- which admittedly may never be coming?
>
> My thoughts would be quite different if I had evidence that the exploit
> poster held copyrights in the infringed software, but my impression is that
> he does not.  It's clearly wrong, IMO, for Conservancy, FSF, or a copyright
> holder to retaliate against an intransigent GPL violator in this manner
> without warning the violator first that such action is coming.  But..
>
> Is it wrong for a non-copyright-holding customer to do it?  I'm not sure.

I was thinking along the same lines. I don't personally see the
Principles as meaning "frustrated consumers should never mention the
non-response to their source code request in their Amazon product
review". I can't articulate exactly where I think the line is, but I do
think at least some kinds of frustrated user expressions are different
from org actions and copyright holder actions.

-john

-- 
John Sullivan | Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
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