On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 09:20:31PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Sven Luther writes: > > >> You assume that upstream is less likely to abuse the license or courts > > > > Well, in this particular case, knowing the upstream author and the french > > judicial system, i know that he is less likely to do so. My own guess is that > > it would never go beyond a few email exchange, or maybe a formal letter. > > See the "Tentacles of Evil" test for why this does not let us ignore > non-free license clauses.
Please cite me soe real DFSG violation, and not some bogus test. > > Unless the violating side would be a big corporation and deliberatedly > > violated the licence. And since both microsoft and sun would have interest in > > the ocaml code base and technology, this later may be understandable. > > I don't know about other authors though, but i have serious doubts of anyone > > being able to engage into unfounded harassment tactics without a corrupt judge > > to stand by its side, and i do believe that this is much more likely to happen > > in the US and in other unlawfull countries than in the french court chosen > > here. > > Both Microsoft and Sun do business in France, right? I'm going to > take a wild guess and say they have offices somewhere convenient to be > sued -- perhaps even in the district of the French court specified > now. The bigger and more multi-national a company is, the more likely > they can be conveniently sued. That also correlates well with the > likely losses if they "steal" free software (i.e. they violate the > license). Well, microsoft is widely known to have stolen load of free and non-free software, have they not ? > >> than a user (or perhaps that the expected damage due to upstream abuse > >> is less). It is not clear to me that this is the case. Do we really > > > > Yeah, well the opposite is not clear to me also, and i happen to know the > > people involved personally, so i am able to make that judgement call. > > Furthermore, it is my package, and i belive i am the person responsible for > > making said judgement call, since i would be the first sued in case of > > problems, would i not ? > > Ask RedHat whether they would be the first sued. See below. Ask yourself how you would feel if someone violated the licence on your code ? > >> gain by making it more difficult for users to defend their permitted > >> use of the software, given that we allow upstream to specify which > >> laws should be used? > > > > Well, cite me one example of such harassment ? Do we really want to go rigid > > over this while it is only pure blind speculation and fear ? And in this case, > > is our fear for our user any more acceptable than upstream's fear to get its > > licence violated, or even to get sued over it in his own right ? > > Is SCO "blind speculation?" How much has been spent by IBM, Daimler > Chrystler, and AutoZone to defend against those lawsuits? How does > that compare to how much has been spent on GPL enforcement in all > time? Well, since they claimed copyright one some amiga/powerpc/apsu header Geert has privately written, they can't have real claims. This whole story seems to me a outgrowth of a lawsuit-sick system. Debian-legal suffers from the same symptom though. > Can you cite examples where some GPL violator got away with it because > the author could not sue? There are well-known cases where the author Well, i believe i had some code in that linux kernel SCO rejected the GPL validity one. You may also have. > sued over GPL infringement and got his way, even when the violator was > somewhere else. There are many more cases where the author did not > have to go to court -- polite letters, or PR campaigns by the free > software community, were enough to get compliance. Well, lot of lost time it probably cost. lost time a normal people can't afford. But let's stop here, and follow in the other more rationale thread. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
