On Mon, 2012-02-06 at 14:47 -0200, Matheus Izvekov wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Bernd Petrovitsch
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Mon, 2012-02-06 at 13:11 -0200, Matheus Izvekov wrote:
> > [....]
> >> I think there are two main points about this:
> >> The first is that I agree with Tim that suspending the license is a
> >> big issue for any company wishing to ship busybox,
> >> much more so if all of their other unrelated products are held
> >> hostage. Any litigation regarding busybox should remain
> >
> > That's a question of legal systems, laws and how that works in general -
> > and it works in pretty all areas of life that way BTW.
> > And if it is truly such "a big issue" for them, why they are risking it
> > in the first place?
>
> I am only responding to this bit because it represents a false
> assumption about what I was advocating for,
> and this propagates to all the parts of your response below.
Oh, I'm glad that you think you know my assumptions. SCNR ...
> What I am saying has nothing to do with what the GPL text itself says,
> it might as well say anything.
Yup, the above holds basically for all licenses.
> The law firm which is advancing these lawsuits is responding to
> someone, Denys I suppose, and this
> person has the power to decide to sue or not, independently of what
> the license actually says.
> What I am advocating for is more discretion in this decision, taking
> into account what can be gained
> from it, and what can be the costs.
BTW you failed to propose alternatives to "not suing" and analyze these
alternatives and think about the consequences.
And you fail to analyze what will happen if no one is suing on GPL
license breaches (independent of the motivation, reason and what what
other excuse comes up).
And don't forget to take the timeline and the life span of typical
products.
The cost of "not suing" is mainly: No one will ever adhere to the
license if no one enforces it. Because - obviously - no one is
interested in enforcing the license and - thus - the risk is pretty
minimal zo zero.
It is as simple as that. And it is the same in other areas (in some
jurisdictions).
> This might sound wrong to the more idealistically inclined, but I am
> saying that the busybox legal representative should take more into
> account than the mere 'not complying with the license'.
First and foremost, it's their - the authors rights/copyrights holders -
decision.
Secondly, I trust any reasonable person here (and the main busybox
contributors and maintainers are reasonable IMHO) to think about it and
not just sue because they feel today like it (and contrary to popular
beliefs, a sue is a lot of - additional - work on the own side).
Perhaps you should contribute (much more) to "busybox" to feel more like
them.
And why should they and what can the gain from - to put it simply - "not
suing"?
And why do you want to talk them out of suing?
> It's what executives at most companies do, they don't sue willy nilly,
> contrary to popular belief. They realize there are huge costs
> involved, and they at least have an ulterior motive, even if that
> sometimes is a flawed reasoning about avoiding damages. Even if they
> sometimes are very wrong about the payoffs, they are at least trying
> to take them into consideration.
That's precisely the point. Then think about why they risk such an
obvious(!) sue (and "public shame" and ...) by not adhering to the
license?
In the commercial world, one would phone and talk to get money for the
licenses afterwards or whatever compensation.
Then, one would think about the impact on the business on both sides
(depending on the jurisdiction there are vast different ways to handle
the risks of law suits. Most law suits never happen anyway because if
the other company is significantly larger than my own, I have nearly no
chance unless I have a very strong case *and* solve the funding problem
for the law suit ....) - but - and that hasn't arrived in the
proprietary commercial "old-economy" heads yet - we have here a
different game.
That's IMHO one of the reasons behind the patent absurdity (grant as
much patents as possible independent of the historical necessities like
"must be new", "must not be trivial", "must not be maths/logic" - as if
software is not applied maths and/or logic as such -, etc. to all areas
of life) in the last 15(?) years because the patent law pretty much
allows corporations to enforce the old-school rules of the game (which
is: "I have more commercial power, I'm right." It's as simple as that.).
Bernd
--
Bernd Petrovitsch Email : [email protected]
LUGA : http://www.luga.at
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