Lewis A. Mettler, Esq.: http://www.lamlaw.com/
------ November 10, 2006 - Friday 7:34 AM PST - Open Source holds up in court (InfoWorld) While this decision is welcome, it may not mean what the headline suggests. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana dismissed the case, finding the plaintiff had suffered no antitrust injury. And then the Seventh Circuit affirmed. That suggests to me that the problem was with the plaintiff and the specific complaint rather than some kind of decision on the merits of the defense. Frankly I find it very difficult to see a scenario where open source is going to present anything close to a monopoly or even monopoly power. GPL may tend to keep some prices low or even at zero leaving companies with a business plan to charge for support. But that is not a monopoly. And it does not reduce or restrict output in any way. Quiet clearly it does the opposite. It empowers just about anyone to re-distribute themselves and/or offer additional or substitute support services. That is a far cry from the proprietary you have to pay and do without support model. What may not be too clear from this article or the case if you have been following it is that the plaintiff does have to show how he has been harmed by the defendants. And that is very hard to show when none of them addressed any of their activities toward him. Rather it would appear that Wallace wanted to appoint himself as a representative of many others and simply attack the form of competition that open source can bring. The DOJ might be able to do that. And the various Attorney Generals might be able to do that. But, private citizens (and companies) can only only represent themselves. If Wallace could show how he was harmed because of something the defendants did, that might be a different story. But, of course, IBM, Red Hat and Novell (the defendants in this case) did not even know who Wallace was and did not care either. And when that is the situation it is hard to prove that somehow their acts caused him harm. His case would be no stronger if he had sued Microsoft. Actually, it would have been much better. At least Microsoft has engaged in illegal acts. And certainly Mr. Wallace could argue that he is unable to develop a browser and bring it to market because of those acts. Simply put, it does not make a case just because you do not like what someone else is doing. Or, that many others are doing it too. Or, that they are not charging a high enough price for you to compete profitably. ------ Esq.? LOL. regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
