There's an interesting take on the GPL here from 451 Group, pointing out that the increasingly legal action by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is proving highly effective.

21 Nov 2007

And so it should. Open source is going to have to fight its corner like everybody else and the more it does so the more respect it will get from commercial vendors.

To get open source taken seriously it will have to fight its corner, and the SFLC is doing an excellent job at managing it. The commercial vendors will find it much harder to portray the free software movement as a lot of long-haired hippy types if they're still hurting from a fistful of legal failures.

It's kind of like the two teams looking to disrupt the recently departed Japanese whaling fleet. On the one hand you've got Greenpeace who won't intervene much and concentrate on recording the slaughter, or the Sea Shepherd crew, who attack the whaling fleet and try to organise a boycott of Japanese products. While their tactics are questionable if I was a humpbacked whale I know which group I'd prefer on my side.