[yaeger]

>In other words the legal outcome of GPL violations is not necessarily being forced to release the rest of the code as GPL.

True. I have met many people who didn't make that connection. They had this idea that if they found GPL code inside a commercial, closed source product, that it would be completely okay to start distributing this software themselves. Because in their minds, "GPL is in there, so the entire thing automatically becomes GPL licensed and everybody can distribute GPL licensed code and even charge money for it".

I had to explain to them that is doesn't work that way. And if they found such a component, all they would have found was a GPL violation which they can report and which then would be an issue between the software's developers to resolve. Which may either end in them actually releasing their entire product under GPL or simply paying a fine. Out of those options I am pretty sure most would rather pay a fine than to give up their own IP to the GPL.