[jra_samba_org]

There are several cloud filesystem gateway appliances that contain considerable proprietary code on the appliance, and use Samba GPLv3 software to provide gateway services from SMB clients into the cloud.

I'm not at liberty to name them as I am the NAS boxes as most of them are not forthcoming about their use of Samba to anyone but their customers (to whom they provide replaceable source code of course), whereas the NAS vendors are well known users of GPLv3 Samba.

You seem to be under the impression that avoiding GPLv3 code prevents competitors from buying our box and rendering it down to components, including your precious software, and figuring out any trade secrets you may have.

This is a strange and incorrect impression.

If you genuinely want to use Samba in your proprietary appliance, email me (I'm easy to find). I help companies do this every day as part of my job.

You won't be able to use Samba outside of the terms of GPLv3 of course, but most companies not requiring DRM seem to be perfectly comfortable with that.