Violations of the GNU Licenses

If you think you see a violation of the GNUGPL,LGPL,AGPL, orFDL,the first thing youshould do is double-check the facts:

• Does the distribution contain a copy of the License?
• Does it clearly state which software is covered by the License?Does it say anything misleading, perhaps giving the impressionthat something is covered by the License when in fact it is not?
• Is source code included in the distribution?
• Is a written offer for source code included with a distribution ofjust binaries?
• Is the available source code complete, or is it designed forlinking in other nonfree modules?

If there seems to be a real violation, the next thing you need to dois record the details carefully:

• the precise name of the product
• the name of the person or organization distributing it
• email addresses, postal addresses and phone numbers for how tocontact the distributor(s)
• the exact name of the package whose license is violated
• how the license was violated:
  • Is the copyright notice of the copyright holder included?
  • Is the source code completely missing?
  • Is there a written offer for source that's incomplete in someway? This could happen if it provides a contact address ornetwork URL that's somehow incorrect.
  • Is there a copy of the license included in the distribution?
  • Is some of the source available, but not all? If so, what partsare missing?

The more of these details that you have, the easier it is for thecopyright holder to pursue the matter.

Once you have collected the details, you should send a precise reportto the copyright holders of the packages that are being wronglydistributed. The GNU licenses are copyright licenses; free licensesin general are based on copyright. In most countries only thecopyright holders are legally empowered to act against violations.

The Free Software Foundation acts on GPL violations reported onFSF-copyrighted code. Thus,ifthe program includes code that is copyright FreeSoftware Foundation, please send your reportto<license-violation@gnu.org>.

It's important that we be able to write back to you to get moreinformation about the violation and the product. Thus, if you use ananonymous remailer, please provide a return path of some sort. Ifyou'd like to encrypt your correspondence, just send a brief mailsaying so, and we'll make appropriate arrangements. Because the FSFendorsedthePrinciples of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement, you can restassured that your report will not lead to punishing anyone for aninnocent mistake who is willing to correct it.

The FSF offers assistance and advice to any other copyright holder whowishes to enforce GNU licenses. But we cannot act on our own where wedo not hold copyright. Thus, be sure to find out who are thecopyright holders of the software, and report the violation tothem.

Our colleagues at the Software Freedom Conservancy do GPL enforcementfor many free programs, through their own copyrights and withcoalitions of copyright holders in those programs. The programsinclude Linux, Git, Samba, QEMU, and others. If you encounter a GPLviolation on those programs, we suggest youvisittheConservancy's copyleft compliance pagefor the up-to-date listof programs it handles, and how to report violations.