Philippe recently asked a question which I think deserves a clear answer:
...is the EPL just a joke, that everybody can ignore?
The answer is, of course, no. We take the Eclipse Public License very seriously.
There have been numerous times when we at the Eclipse Foundation been involved in real or potential license violations of the EPL. As the Agreement Steward for the license, protecting the IP which has been licensed under it is one of our responsibilities.
However, we always initially try to rectify these situations privately and discreetly. To date we have had a 100% success rate resolving misunderstandings following this approach. Including the one that Philippe was hinting at. And that’s really the point: in my experience these are typically misunderstandings, not someone attempting to do something malicious.
So yes, we take the EPL very seriously. Yes, we look into potential issues quickly. But we’ve had good luck using the quiet approach and plan to continue doing so.
BTW, if anyone sees a situation where they think there may be a licensing problem, please let us know at license (at) eclipse.org. We will look into it.
