If a license violation is reported and Unity ignores it their legal risk is higher than for violations no one has reported. The report forces their hand, to a degree.
From the post: "Enforcement is seemingly totally random, unless you get reported by someone, apparently." ... which is another way of acknowledging enforcement isn't random. The report matters. That's what moves the responsibility for adhering to the license from the asset provider (VLC in this case) to Unity.
BTW, "other people are doing it too" isn't a great excuse for violating license terms. If that was OK, then licenses would be generally be almost meaningless.
Regarding Unity's direct usage of LGPL code, that's on them. They need to make sure to honor the LGPL license. Nobody made the claim they weren't, so I'm not sure it's relevant.
Here's another bit from the post that I thought was telling: "After months of slow back-and-forth over email trying to find a compromise..." What compromise? If you find out you're violating an open source license you stop as promptly as you reasonably can. It's not a matter of negotiating with Unity -- that's a separate agreement. It sounds like they eventually came to the right conclusion re the LGPL components, but why was honoring the LGPL license even in doubt? It makes me think they aren't really sincere about open source licenses (and maybe other licenses or any kind of agreement). Note, this point is entirely independent of Unity and whether or not they are screwing VLC. When distributing binaries built with LGPL code, they have a responsibility to honor the license, but only seemed willing to do so reluctantly and belatedly, after pressure from a business partner.
You can't simultaneously claim ignorance and the moral upper hand. Unity knows they are generally in violation/does nothing, then refuses to work with folk?
No.
The OP could have been in the wrong, yet they are willing and capable to make change. Unity has no such defense, merely a combination of laziness/ignorance. Neither of which are a starting place for anything approaching a reasonable defense.
You're not disputing anything I wrote though.
If a license violation is reported and Unity ignores it their legal risk is higher than for violations no one has reported. The report forces their hand, to a degree.
From the post: "Enforcement is seemingly totally random, unless you get reported by someone, apparently." ... which is another way of acknowledging enforcement isn't random. The report matters. That's what moves the responsibility for adhering to the license from the asset provider (VLC in this case) to Unity.
BTW, "other people are doing it too" isn't a great excuse for violating license terms. If that was OK, then licenses would be generally be almost meaningless.
Regarding Unity's direct usage of LGPL code, that's on them. They need to make sure to honor the LGPL license. Nobody made the claim they weren't, so I'm not sure it's relevant.
Here's another bit from the post that I thought was telling: "After months of slow back-and-forth over email trying to find a compromise..." What compromise? If you find out you're violating an open source license you stop as promptly as you reasonably can. It's not a matter of negotiating with Unity -- that's a separate agreement. It sounds like they eventually came to the right conclusion re the LGPL components, but why was honoring the LGPL license even in doubt? It makes me think they aren't really sincere about open source licenses (and maybe other licenses or any kind of agreement). Note, this point is entirely independent of Unity and whether or not they are screwing VLC. When distributing binaries built with LGPL code, they have a responsibility to honor the license, but only seemed willing to do so reluctantly and belatedly, after pressure from a business partner.