> accidentally shipping it on iOS can be pretty dangerous
I read the same argument about GPLv2 in like 1994. To date, there remains no case law I'm aware of where a copyright holder "lost" anything by "accidentally" shipping GPL software. How many decades does it take for us to put this myth to rest?
A lot, because it's hard to derive meaningful conclusions from something that's used so relatively little precisely because of licensing concerns.
Anyway, with v2, the concerns were more vague - you'd have to accidentally link something GPLv2. With v3, even just shipping the binary signed with a private key on a platform that requires said key to load it, is enough to potentially force disclosure of that key (and that is by design of GPLv3 - it wants to kill the TiVo model).
The outcome of violating the GPL is license termination: you cannot distribute it any more. I don't think there has ever been a case of enforced further distribution or disclosure.
My main point was that to my knowledge there has never been a case of forced further distribution.
About termination, what you mention is kind of stopping further violation of the terms and maybe compensation for the past violations. What I wanted to mention (but wasn't at all clear about) is that after termination, you cannot even distribute if you intend to abide by the terms unless you are forgiven by the copyright holder. (In the case of the GPL version 3 there is some grace period during which for the first violation, if you abide within that period, you are explicitly permitted to resume distribution under the license terms.)
Right, so the risk can't be quantified and the whole thing is just isomorphic "because I don't like it". Which was as true then as it is now. It's not about license terms, it's about what amounts to politics.
Experimenting is not the only way to quantify risk. You can also e.g. have several highly paid lawyers look over the text of the license, and see what each of them had to say.
The big players in the industry did just that, and there appears to be a remarkable consensus on it.
