Stallman meant anti-business, as he quit his job at MIT and began writing GNU software. It is a defensible cliché in this context to say that the rest is history. The GNU project launched in 1984. In 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation, to address the big picture of promoting free software. The GNU GPL (General Public License) was written as the legal framework for using and distributing free software.

The GPL today is also well recognized as the license that governs the explosive GNU/Linux operating system. 

The Foundation as part of its work handles investigations of GPL violations. They’re determined to strengthen and protect a free software ecosystem. If dedication were all that was needed to handle such investigations, the FSF would be home free. Bradley Kuhn is one FSF crusader who indeed seems to be the answer to Stallman’s dreams, in the latter’s 1983 call for people valuing “helping humanity.”

Kuhn began working with the FSF as a volunteer, was hired in 2001 to serve full-time, and now serves as the foundation’s executive director. In describing his work on the Affero Web site,  Kuhn says:

”The well-being of FSF is the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep. I work hard in my role at FSF because I care deeply about the cause of software freedom. I once wrote proprietary software for a living, and saw how it served to impede the natural evolution of cooperating communities of software users and programmers. Through my position at FSF, I try my best to work toward a world where all published software is Free Software.”

Unfortunately, neither passion nor compassion is enough. Neither is the small staff’s loyalty; neither is even the distinguished expertise of lawyers Eben Moglen and Dan Ravicher, both of whom put in substantial hours pro bono, nor the hard work of a full-time staff Compliance Engineer, who handles the investigation and confirmation of GPL violations.

In this interview with Open, Kuhn talks about the FSF’s resource constraints that render the foundation’s ability to keep up with the rising number of GPL violations anything but easy.

According to your November 12, 2002 release about the $25,000 donation to the FSF from MySQL, the $25,000 was to support something called the GPL Compliance Lab. The release says it has been around since 1992 but was “formalized” in late 2001. What does “formalize” mean in this context?

Kuhn: Since the early 1990s, GPL enforcement was done primarily by Eben Moglen and Richard Stallman via email. They wrote to companies and brought them into compliance. Occasionally, they sought volunteer help when they needed it to investigate the technical aspects of violations. Now, we do the work as a department, with a budget and staff. We keep detailed records, and make sure that as the violations get resolved, all the i's are dotted and t's crossed.

According to an FSF release, in earlier days you only had to deal with a couple of violations each year, and now the number tops 50, and those violation numbers are expected to go nowhere but up. Can you cope?

Kuhn: The volume of violations we can handle is limited by staffing. Currently, all violations that we handle are those reported to us by third parties. FSF has no ability to search, and this is due to lack of funding. The staff tells me that they could easily find twice the number of violations if they did just the simplest searches for violations.

We handled approximately 50 violations last year. We expect to handle about 5-10% more this year. With staffing levels, this is basically what we can handle. There are many more out there that we could pursue.

Your November release states that your costs each year to defend and enforce the GPL come to over $100,000. How goes the battle with other donations?

Kuhn: We are asking our individual donors, who provide about 67% of our operational costs, to subsidize our GPL enforcement efforts. We have begun to raise some funds from companies. We have about 28 Corporate Patrons that have access through that patron program to our GPL Compliance Program. We also plan to launch a separate compliance program for companies who would like to join just that program but not be a Patron.

It is not yet clear whether companies will pick up the tab for our enforcement efforts. We certainly think those who benefit from enforcement should pay for it directly. However, we will work as best we can funded by individual donations from our general funds if that's what it takes.

But how does one account for the rise in the number of GPL violations?

Kuhn: It’s a combination of many factors. Generally, we see more violations because Free Software is more popular and more widely adopted. The more times that Free Software is used in a product, the more chances there are for violations.

Are the violations more often out of innocent ignorance or out of willful disregard?

Kuhn: I would estimate that 90% or more of violations are simply confusions that can be cleared up by friendly negotiation and explanation. We start every case assuming that it is simply a confusion to be cleared up.

Of the other 10%, almost all are disregard, which requires careful diplomacy to move violators to a point where they take their obligations seriously. So far, we've been able to do it. A very small number of violations are actual willful, concealed infringements. These tend to be the "big cases" that take a long time to resolve.

What’s your track record in enforcing the GPL?

Kuhn: Because we've been careful not to publicly admonish GPL violators, many people don't realize how often we have enforced the GPL successfully. This year, we’ve started to release generally our annual number of cases (that's where the number "50 violations a year" came from). Next year, we’re considering releasing a few more details, such as number of violations broken down by industry; and minimum, average, and maximum time to resolve a violation in a given year. We haven't decided exactly how or if we'll do this yet, but it is under serious consideration.

We often hear that the embedded market is one place where GPL violations are especially likely to occur, is that true?

Kuhn: Embedded computing and "network appliance systems" do make up the bulk of GPL violations. I believe this is often because that industry is least familiar with how the Free Software world works; it is an education effort to make things better. The most common violations are of GPL Section 3 (i.e., "no source code nor offer for source provided"). This is also true in embedded computing. It could be that violations there are common because the whole idea of providing source for an embedded computer is so foreign to these manufacturers.

So, theoretically, what would happen if a company refuses to enter into discussions or cooperate in any way?

Kuhn: We have the right to sue for copyright infringement if we need to. We rarely need to threaten a lawsuit, and we've never had to file one. Most companies realize that what we ask for is not onerous and is easily done. Most companies that find copyright infringement sue for huge sums of money; the most money we ever ask for is reimbursement of our cost in doing that enforcement effort. We say, respect freedom and then we're done here. Most companies find this easy—certainly easier than a court case.

What is the status of your probe into the allegation that Linksys has code in its 54-megabit access points that is GNU/Linux?

Kuhn: From our point of view, it is unfortunate when a GPL violation is made public before we've had a change to negotiate for compliance. It is much easier to work with companies when they know that if they do the right thing, they won't be admonished publicly. Nevertheless, we will proceed with this case with the same vigor and commitment we do with every other GPL violation case.

What do you think of anyone’s complaint that the GPL has too many "ambiguities?"

Kuhn: It is true that copyright law is based around something called "the work", and that it doesn't define perfectly what "the work" is for software. The GPL, like any copyright license, relies on what copyright law defines as "the work." However, if there is any ambiguity at all, it is the ambiguity of copyright law, not that of the GPL.

What’s happening with GPL v3? When is the release date and what is significant about v3?

Kuhn: We don't have a set date for the release of GPLv3. Drafting a Free Software license is a difficult undertaking, and the work is not even far enough along yet to launch the public comment period. Our general goal is to attempt to see ahead what challenges Free Software will face in the next five to 10 years. GPLv2 did well at this; it was able to create a Free Software infrastructure that could be defended. GPLv3 will need to do the same, given changes in technology. For example, language is being drafted that will help address the concerns of Application Server Providers. We even released some beta language for this as part of the "Affero GPL."

What’s your defense against those who say the GPL isn’t enforceable?

Kuhn: Many people want to believe that because there hasn't been a big, giant enforcement court case with an O.J.-Simpson-sized media circus that the GPL can't possibly be a sound, valid, and enforceable license. We believe that every day a lawyer at a new firm advises his client that it makes sense to comply with the license in the way that we've asked, rather than go to court with us over it, that the GPL gets a little bit stronger. Lawyers only go to court when they think they can win. If all the lawyers who have been involved with our enforcement efforts so far thought FSF had no clout or that the GPL was not enforceable, one of them surely would have simply pushed us to sue them.

On this matter, I do urge you to read Eben Moglen's essay, "Enforcing the GPL."

The Register's posting concerning the Linksys probe comments "FSF isn't wealthy, and has little clout apart from the mind-share amongst a section of the developer community."

Kuhn: People in our so-called "Western Culture" tend to assume that substantial financial wealth is what gives clout. FSF has a lot of clout to enforce the GPL precisely because we aren't obsessed with the procurement of financial wealth. Our primary goal is to convince the company that it is in their best interest to comply with the GPL and respect the rights and freedoms of the community. The only money we ask for is reimbursement of enforcement costs.

What’s especially compelling about the success of the FSF in protecting the GPL?

Kuhn: We have enforced the GPL successfully in every case brought to our attention since around 1993, and done so without ever filing a court case. We have done so in a way that did not cause alarm at a time when people didn't really know much about the license and the software covered by it. Now that GPL'ed software has become a core part of the industry, we continue to enforce the GPL, perhaps a little more formally. We are ensuring that the GPL is a foundation for companies and individuals to share software and trust each other in new ways.