Please read, about Software Freedom Law Center
Jan Panteltje
http://perens.com/blog/2009/12/15/23/
I guess, and I have warned of that before, that SFLC is just
an other money making setup, and not so much about developer rights.
Keep this in mind.
Boon
> Please read, about Software Freedom Law Center
> http://perens.com/blog/2009/12/15/23/
Thanks for bringing this to the group's attention.
There's also an ongoing discussion on LWN.
Bruce Perens: Statement on Busybox Lawsuits
http://lwn.net/Articles/366684/
Jerry Peters
But lawyers and lawsuits do cost money. Raising money via settlements
seems to be a reasonable idea to me; sort of like a fine for being
clueless about using GPL'd software.
Jerry
Jan Panteltje
Peters <je...@example.invalid> wrote in
<hgbk1a$jqm$7...@news.eternal-september.org>:
But should it not be public how much money was made or asked,
and should it not also go to all contributors?
Bob Tennent
Settlement money isn't for the developers, but for the legal costs.
The terms of a settlement are usually kept private at the request
of the defendant.
Jan Panteltje
<Bo...@cs.queensu.ca> wrote in <slrnhiioq...@linus.cs.queensu.ca>:
Then it is just a business to make money.,.
So using GPL as a way to make some money, and nothing to do with software.
OF COURSE money should go to the developers.
Too many f*cking lawyers.
John Hasler
> Then it is just a business to make money.,.
Lawyers need to eat just like everyone else. At least in the USA you
can represent yourself in court if you so choose. You are usually
better off hiring an expert (i.e., a lawyer), though.
> So using GPL as a way to make some money, and nothing to do with
> software.
Of course it has to do with Free Software. These businesses are being
compelled to comply with the terms of the GPL and the cases publicized
so as to serve as examples to other potential infringers.
> OF COURSE money should go to the developers.
That is up to the developers, not to you. The plaintiffs in these cases
could have held out for money (in the USA, anyway). They chose not to.
> Too many f*cking lawyers.
No. Too many fucking laws. A shortage of lawyers might have resulted
in these infringements continuing with impunity.
--
John Hasler
jha...@newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA
Jan Panteltje
<jha...@newsguy.com> wrote in <87vdg6e...@thumper.dhh.gt.org>:
I see it this way, it is the programmers rights who were violated.
Not the lawyers rights
So, if any compensation *was* to happen, the programmers should be compensated.
The lawyers can have maybe 10% for the help.
John Hasler
> I see it this way, it is the programmers rights who were violated.
And thus it is they (not you) who decided what to settle for and they
who contracted with the lawyers.
> Not the lawyers rights So, if any compensation *was* to happen, the
> programmers should be compensated.
The lawyers did the work of prosecuting the cases. The plaintiffs could
have represented themselves. They chose to employ professionals.
> The lawyers can have maybe 10% for the help.
When you file suit for infringement of your copyrights, tell your lawyer
that.
Rainer Weikusat
> Jan Panteltje writes:
[...]
>> So using GPL as a way to make some money, and nothing to do with
>> software.
>
> Of course it has to do with Free Software. These businesses are being
> compelled to comply with the terms of the GPL and the cases publicized
> so as to serve as examples to other potential infringers.
Nearly everything the SFLC has been involved in so far was circled
around busybox. I strongly suspect that the reason for so many
'infringing' busyboxes is that nobody who is convinced to be capable
to write his own code has much desire to deal with Robert Landley, not
the least because his self assessment and actual competence are not
exactly congruent. This implies that people using the busybox code
will usually just fork a random version of it and once the thing has
left R&D, nobody cares about the licensing anymore, especially not if
this would mean to pay money now, as opposed to "see if we're lucky
and no one ever figures this out".
While this doesn't change the legal aspects of the situation, the
problem is nevertheless somewhat homemade and that the Mssrs Landley
and Anderson profit financially from the work of others they likely
wouldn't have wanted in their codebase for completely personal
reasons, except if they have the 'proof' that it is of value because
it is part of a successful, commercial product, is certainly morally
unjustified.
Just in case someone failed to notice this: Yes I do harbour personal
grudges here.
Jerry Peters
There's an article in the current LWN about this from Bruce Perens'
perspective as one of the original BB devlopers that you might find
interesting if you haven't already seen it.
Jerry
Jerry Peters
In the US, at least, the defendants normally ask for the settlement to
be sealed, probably to keep other legal sharks from getting any ideas.
It's really aggravating when one of the parties is a government
entity, especially when the taxpayers are the ones paying.
Jerry
John Hasler
> In the US, at least, the defendants normally ask for the settlement to
> be sealed, probably to keep other legal sharks from getting any ideas.
> It's really aggravating when one of the parties is a government
> entity, especially when the taxpayers are the ones paying.
Government entities are not always allowed to agree to sealing of
settlements, though.
Rainer Weikusat
> Rainer Weikusat <rwei...@mssgmbh.com> wrote:
>> John Hasler <jha...@newsguy.com> writes:
>>> Jan Panteltje writes:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>>> So using GPL as a way to make some money, and nothing to do with
>>>> software.
>>>
>>> Of course it has to do with Free Software. These businesses are being
>>> compelled to comply with the terms of the GPL and the cases publicized
>>> so as to serve as examples to other potential infringers.
>>
>> Nearly everything the SFLC has been involved in so far was circled
>> around busybox. I strongly suspect that the reason for so many
>> 'infringing' busyboxes is that nobody who is convinced to be capable
>> to write his own code has much desire to deal with Robert Landley,
[...]
> There's an article in the current LWN about this from Bruce Perens'
> perspective as one of the original BB devlopers that you might find
> interesting if you haven't already seen it.
Actually, no. I no longer maintain a 'private' busybox fork and the
only thing I desire wrt discussions like this is that they happen
elsewhere. Apparently, busybox has a new maintainer and this
maintainer is actually reverting some of the past misdescisions, such
as 'writing functionless code, relying on "gcc dead code elimination",
including gcc-version specific hacks, to make this work to avoid using
coprocessor conditionals, presumably (my suspicion) to hack around
deficiencies in the syntax highlighting code of some version(s) of
vim'. That's remotely good news. But my 'open source honeymoon' has
been past history for a long time now. Nowadays, I change everything I
use in whatever ways I see fit/ need and wouldn't bother to even try
contributing anything non-trivial to any 'project'. I need the code to
work in order to solve specific problems. I don't need heated
discussions with mailing list lurkers 'with an opinion'.