[libreplanet-discuss] bounties for reporting GPL violations?

[Daniel Pocock]

If I understand the reports about the Hellwig vs VMware case correctly,
the case failed[1] (in the first stage) because Hellwig didn't have (or
didn't submit to the court) enough evidence of the GPL violation.
Obviously it can be hard for people to produce such evidence if they are
not inside a company and can't see the code.

The BSA (representing proprietary software) offers rewards for
anonymously reporting[2] license violations in corporations.  Presumably
they are hoping that there is somebody with a conscience inside every
company that is not compliant and willing to provide evidence against
their employer in exchange for the reward.

Would it be worthwhile for the FSF or producers of GPL software to have
their names in the list on that site, alongside other victims of license
violations such as Microsoft and Adobe?

Or has anybody contemplated a parallel scheme to gather evidence of
violations?

Regards,

Daniel


1. https://opensource.com/law/16/8/gpl-enforcement-action-hellwig-v-vmware
2. https://reporting.bsa.org/r/report/add.aspx?src=us&ln=en-us