On 06/27/2014 05:07 PM, Mark Rousell wrote:
> Clearly, however, Red Hat's lawyers (and the FSF it
> seems) think such a limitation is not a violation of GPL.
>
> For what it's worth, such limiting contractual terms (even if freely
> entered into) do seem on the face of it to be a violation of clause 6 of
> GPL2 and possibly clause 12 of GPL3 (amongst others possibly). Anyway,
> as above, it seems that FSF disagrees with me so I need to read GPL2 and
> 3 much more thoroughly!
>
For what it's worth, Bradley Kuhn has spent a great deal of time and 
effort in dealing with GPL violations.  The fact that even he concedes 
it is likely not a GPL violation speaks volumes; the fact that he, the 
FSF, etc, have not initiated a lawsuit against Red Hat for a GPL 
violation speaks even louder.  I was taught as a child that actions 
speak louder than words; and inaction speaks louder yet, especially as 
he finds Red Hat's practice to be distasteful. If there were a case to 
be made I would think Mr. Kuhn or another similarly-opinioned individual 
would have made it by now; this issue has been around for a decade, it's 
not a new thing.

But my favorite line from his other post is simply this: " I do find 
myself wishing that the people debating whether the exact right number 
of angels are dancing on the head of this particular GPL pin would 
instead spend some time helping to end the flagrant, constant, and 
obvious GPL violations with which I spent much time dealing time each 
week."