[ericpauley]

Exactly. This fantasy of forcing companies to release source code because of past use is just that: a fantasy.

Imagine if you pirated photoshop and the courts retroactively forced you to install Adobe spyware to comply with the license. Obviously the most the court could do is fine you or prevent further infringement.

[kevin_thibedeau]

It's no more fanciful than assessing exorbitant damages for distributing each copy made via BitTorrent. The courts were fine with letting that happen.

Just because the plaintiffs aren't operating billion dollar businesses doesn't make their infringement claims less valid. The terms of the GPL explicitly spell out Deere's obligations. If they ignore them it converts to plain old copyright infringement with damages due for every illegal copy made.

[dkjaudyeqooe]

It's not as simple as that. What if it infeasible to remove the GPL code from your product and are unwilling to withdraw your product. It could be argued that compensation would be unacceptable, inadequate and impractical given hundreds of anonymous contributors writing software on an ideological, rather than financial basis. Why would being forced to share your code be taken off the table in that case? I could see the court finding that it would be the only equitable remedy.

[ericpauley]

Sure, but infeasible is decided by the business. Their choice is either to not distribute anymore (and potentially pay damages for past infringement) or distribute in line with the license.