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Wordsmith two paragraphs.

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Bradley M. Kuhn 2014-03-20 21:04:31 -04:00 committed by donaldr3
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10
compliance-guide.tex
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@ -48,10 +48,11 @@ post-violation responses to the concerns of copyright holders.
\chapter{Background}
Early GPL enforcement efforts began soon after the GPL was written by
Richard Stallman in 1989, and consisted of informal community efforts,
Richard M.~Stallman (RMS) in 1989, and consisted of informal community efforts,
often in public Usenet discussions.\footnote{One example is the public
outcry over NeXT's attempt to make the Objective-C front-end to GCC
proprietary.} Over the next decade, the Free Software Foundation (FSF),
proprietary. RMS, in fact, handled this enforcement action personally and
the Objective-C front-end is still part of upstream GCC today.} Over the next decade, the Free Software Foundation (FSF),
which holds copyrights in many GNU programs, was the only visible entity
actively enforcing its GPL'd copyrights on behalf of the software freedom
community.
@ -60,7 +61,7 @@ was generally a private process; the FSF contacted violators
confidentially and helped them to comply with the license. Most
violations were pursued this way until the early 2000's.
By that time, Linux-based systems had become very common, particularly in
By that time, Linux-based systems such as GNU/Linux and BusyBox/Linux had become very common, particularly in
embedded devices such as wireless routers. During this period, public
ridicule of violators in the press and on Internet fora supplemented
ongoing private enforcement and increased pressure on businesses to
@ -71,7 +72,8 @@ Beginning in 2004, Harald Welte took a more organized public enforcement
approach and launched \verb0gpl-violations.org0, a website and mailing
list for collecting reports of GPL violations. On the basis of these
reports, Welte successfully pursued many enforcements in Europe, including
formal legal action.
formal legal action. Harald earns the permanent fame as the first copyright
holder to bring legal action in a Court regarding GPL compliance.
In 2007, the SFLC filed the first U.S.~copyright infringement lawsuit
based on a violation of the GPL\@. While the lawsuits filed by SFLC on