On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:02:03 -0400, Yigal Chripun <yigal...@gmail.com>
wrote:
On 31/03/2009 00:36, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
No, it would not be reasonable. In fact that would just be a nice fat
paycheck for the plaintiff's lawyer (and probably the defendant's
lawyer) and nothing else.
Nobody can expect someone to glimpse at machine code and later recall
how it was coded so they can use it in their own code. Not assembly,
machine code. This so-called defendant would have to specifically go
looking for code in random memory, then either disassemble it or
hand-parse the machine code. I've debugged plenty of code on Microsoft's
OS, and I haven't ever been sued, or had any worry of being sued,
because I accidentally saw some of their disassembled code. My
interpretation of the non-support from these developers was "we don't
like non-GPL'd software, so we aren't going to help you," not "Oh, well
if we look at this binary code someone might sue us." I think you are
reading an issue into this that doesn't exist.
what if the defendant doesn't have/want to spend that money on lawyers?
It's typical to counter-sue for attorney fees. That is generally what
happens when a big fish goes after a little fish (and loses).
even if the chance is tiny, it is not zero.
Ok, I guess you got me there :)
besides, even if I'm completely wrong on this and you're completely
right (which I don't believe to be the case), you're forgetting that
those developers are all volonteers working on the project on their
spare time. They don't have to do anything at all. sure it sucks they
don't want to help you out but they are not under any obligation to do
so. That reminds me a phrase: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth".
Yeah, they can do whatever they want, I understand that, but that actually
makes their project less attractive to companies because one of the huge
benefits of open-source development is the community support. If they
decide not to support you because of some reason unrelated to the problem
at hand, then you are screwed. As it turned out, we had a solution,
simply GPL our driver. Not the one I would have preferred, but it worked
nonetheless.
people in the US sued MacDonald's because their coffee was hot (and
they even won the case!). other people sued a company since their
peanuts contains nuts. why would a developer is free to assume he/she
won't be sued for accidentally seeing the memory of that closed source
driver in the debugger?
Anyone can sue you for anything. To say that they will win is another
thing. Nobody's going to sue someone for seeing machine code in memory
that happens to be of proprietary software, not because they are nice,
but because they'd have no case.
In the McDonald's case, the coffee was not just hot, the coffee caused
3rd degree burns, which required skin grafting. The jury awarded
punitive damages in excess of 2.8 million *not* at the request of the
plaintiff, but because they believed McDonald's would not change their
policy (of making their coffee 20-30 degrees hotter than any other
vendor) unless they did so. That is what punitive damages are for. The
lady only sought to have her medical costs covered (which McDonald's
refused). This case has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with copyright law, so
I have no idea why you brought it up. People always point to this case
as an example of ridiculous judgements, but this one actually strikes me
as fair.
Other examples of lawsuits are definitely frivolous. If that peanut case
is true, I'd use that one instead (it sounds too ridiculous to be true,
I'd appreciate a citation). But let's not forget you are citing a small
number of bizarre cases in an ocean of lawsuits that actually make
sense. To worry that someone might frivolously sue you is like worrying
that you might trip over your shoelaces and so you don't ever wear
shoes.
I don't have a citation for this, sorry. In British law and therefore
our law in Israel (which was influenced by the British) there is a
concept of "a reasonable man", I'm pretty sure this also applies to
European law as well.
I don't know much about law theory, but I'm sure there are provisions like
this in U.S. law. At the very least, you have a right to a trial decided
by 12 "reasonable men."
The idea is that a reasonable man as understood by the law knows that
peanuts are a kind of nuts. therefore these kinds of frivolous cases are
dismissed and will never reach court and waste time/money. this is
missing in the US where anyone can sue anyone else for anything.
It's a bad trend I think that lawsuits have become so common. I think
there are definitely problems with the liberal views that many judges have
in our country, which fuels this kind of thing. Here is a good example:
Two border crossing agents shot a man who was smuggling 800 lbs of
marijuana into the US from Mexico. Those two agents got 12 years in
prison for that, and the smuggler is suing the US government for 5 million
(oh, he was given immunity for his smuggling activities). This kind of
shit makes me feel like we have huge issues in our justice system.
But I still would not be afraid of debugging code that had proprietary
portions for fear of being sued. I don't think anybody who is not
unreasonably paranoid is afraid in this way.
My assertion is not that the GPL should be illegal or be forcibly
removed, my assertion (and ESR's as I interpret it) is that GPL'd
software doesn't foster as much productivity or usefulness as other open
source licenses, and therefore should be avoided. Why should anyone use
GPL when there are much less restrictive licenses available? The world
is full of for-profit companies using open source software, and the vast
majority of them don't touch GPL'd software unless they have to. Why is
that?
you mix to separate things. a closed source company probably will not
want to be a *client* of GPL-like source, sure. that's different from a
company that uses GPL-like licenses for it's own products and code.
But isn't that the point of GPL? To make developers who use it GPL
everything that touches it? I just think it's not a good move to GPL code
unless you don't want it to be heavily used commercially, unless your
project is the ONLY one out there that does what it does. However, as
soon as something comes along that is open source and NOT GPL, I'd be
surprised if your project lasted much longer.
Sure, it is not the only project that is GPL'd, but it is one of the
only GPL'd projects out there that is the basis of a successful company.
I don't really know of any others. So here is a challenge, name 10 of
those companies.
come on.. why did Sun choose the GPL as the basis for almost all it's
products over less restrictive licenses as you say?
Sun's products that are GPL'ed: Java, Netbeans, solaris, etc.. even the
specs for their CPU are open sourced!
The only one in this list (after doing some research) that is released
under the GPL is Java. The others are under CDDL, which does not forbid
linking closed source software with CDDL licensed software. It only
requires that the CDDL software remain CDDL. I don't consider this to
have the same issues as GPL.
Why did sun release Java under GPL? Probably due to community pressure
(been there). I wonder how much benefit Sun has gained from making Java
GPL, they certainly did very well with Java when it was not GPL.
that telephony project, asterix (IIRC), provides jobs for many
consultant companies on setting up your own telephony solution based on
that project.
that's just of the top of my head without doing any search...
I'll give you that one, so that's 2 projects that make companies money,
asterisk and Linux. However, I'm not sure it's the license that makes
these companies money, another less restrictive open source license
probably would suffice.
-Steve
