<story><title>Oneplus GPL violation for Android 12 Kernel</title><url>https://github.com/OnePlusOSS/android_kernel_oneplus_sm8250/issues/24</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>noisy_boy</author><text>Genuine question: what happens if they refuse to release? How is it enforced? If the answer is going to court, who sues them? EFF?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mdasen</author><text>Anyone who has copyrighted code in the kernel they&amp;#x27;re using can sue or a copyright holder can work with an organization like the EFF or Software Freedom Conservancy to sue them.&lt;p&gt;One of the big things with the Linux kernel is that it&amp;#x27;s GPLv2 and the GPLv2 doesn&amp;#x27;t offer an opportunity to come back into compliance. Any violation leads to an automatic termination to all rights. Most of the big kernel developers have said that they won&amp;#x27;t enforce GPLv2 &amp;quot;death penalty&amp;quot;, but there&amp;#x27;s a lot of Linux developers out there and Linux doesn&amp;#x27;t have authors assign copyright so there&amp;#x27;s a huge number of copyright holders.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.&lt;p&gt;There are lots of articles on this like &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fosspatents.com&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;most-android-vendors-lost-their-linux.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fosspatents.com&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;most-android-vendors-lost...&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.samba.org&amp;#x2F;samba&amp;#x2F;samba&amp;#x2F;ftp&amp;#x2F;slides&amp;#x2F;linuxcollab-why-samba-went-gplv3.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.samba.org&amp;#x2F;samba&amp;#x2F;samba&amp;#x2F;ftp&amp;#x2F;slides&amp;#x2F;linuxcollab-why...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Realistically, most of these things get settled or ignored and the world moves on with a bare minimum of enforcement.</text></comment>
<story><title>Oneplus GPL violation for Android 12 Kernel</title><url>https://github.com/OnePlusOSS/android_kernel_oneplus_sm8250/issues/24</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>noisy_boy</author><text>Genuine question: what happens if they refuse to release? How is it enforced? If the answer is going to court, who sues them? EFF?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>warp</author><text>I think the Software Freedom Conservancy is probably the most active in trying to enforce GPL compliance on free software in general, and for the Linux kernel in particular.&lt;p&gt;Some kernel developers have assigned their copyrights directly to the SFC, and some have signed agreements for SFC to do this enforcement on their behalf. (see &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sfconservancy.org&amp;#x2F;copyleft-compliance&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;sfconservancy.org&amp;#x2F;copyleft-compliance&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; )&lt;p&gt;Obviously there are many people and organizations who own copyright to parts of the linux kernel, and any of those can attempt to enforce the GPL on the kernel in court.</text></comment>