I expect Conservancy will push for either compliance (preferable) or preventing Vizio from using Linux, or potentially assisting Conservancy in going after whichever hardware vendor BSP their violation came from.
The other things the article mentions aren't actual remedies to the problem of a GPL violation though and as just a third-party beneficiary that is non-profit and who can only get source code benefits, they wouldn't really be entitled to money except maybe their costs in bringing the suit or a refund of their TV purchase. As the post says, the monetary remedy option would also apply to everyone else who bought a TV, or Conservancy could buy another TV and sue again; seems unlikely the court would allow such an unlimited monetary remedy. So the only options are then fixing the compliance, or nothing. But then "court voids contract" doesn't sound like a great headline either, so maybe the specific performance option is the only option. Seems like "court voids third-party beneficiary aspect of contracts" wouldn't be a likely precedent either.
It likely wouldn’t be “court voids contract” it would most likely be “it isn’t a contract”.
It is a bit of a stretch to even say that the GPL even has the required elements of a contract between SFC and Vizio. (And the GPL was never designed to work this way anyway.)
How do you offer someone a contract without ever sending it to them? How do you argue that Visio concurrently offered the terms of the GPL and ignored it? Either there’s an offer or there’s not
It seems to me that Vizio simply ignored the GPL, and the issue is precisely that they didn’t offer it to their customers. Yes, they were supposed to under copyright law, but they didn’t.
At the end of the day, for this to be a valid contract, it’ll have to be shown that:
* Vizio offered the source code to SFC (did this actually happen?)
* SFC accepted that contract (did this happen?)
* there was an exchange of value (this one is easy: the TV)
* that they were capable of entering into the contract (again, easy)
* that there was a meeting of the minds (it might be a defense here that Vizio was just blindly copy and pasting shit!)
If there is one, the "GPL contract" in the case would be between Vizio and Linux copyright holders, not Vizio and SFC, since SFC are a third-party in this case.
You are indeed right that Vizio can probably get around SFC current suit by arguing that they did not enter into the GPL contract and just deliberately decided to use the code without a copyright license, but that then opens them up to higher damages under the inevitable copyright lawsuit.
