Re: You caught one key point ...
"stop people using the entire Linux kernel (and user space code that is not conveniently portable to something else) until he says otherwise. The payouts are on that scale."
There's a lot of assumption in this statement. I'll add my own; in most cases he's settled out of court. In court he'd be entitled to damages for his part, so a respondent could, if it wanted to, make an offer appropriate to his contribution and hope that the judge accepts that. So companies are settling with him in order to avoid the risk. The payouts reflect that avoidance of risk, not the value derived from others work.
I'm struggling to find sympathy for GPL violators. If it were Disney films they'd be in prison.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
