Neil Schneider wrote:
Open Source Software Survives Antitrust Challenge
FindLaw
By Kevin Fayle,
Does giving something away violate the Sherman Act's prohibition on
predatory pricing? Does encouraging a price of zero constitute
price-fixing? No on both counts, according to a recent Seventh Circuit
decision in an antitrust suit against companies distributing software
under the GNU Public License (GPL).
The suit, filed by an independent software developer against IBM, Red
Hat and Novell, alleged that the GPL constitutes a conspiracy to drive
out potential competitors of the Linux operating system. By fixing the
price at zero, he argued, the companies conspired to drive out
competition in the software market by distributing Linux at a price
other developers couldn't beat - free.
read more .....
http://technology.findlaw.com/articles/00006/010425.html
This is a familiar case for those who have been following the TSCOG v
IBM /IBM v TSCOG cases (esp. via Groklaw and the Yahoo! SCOX finance
message board). The "[I]ndependent software developer" who filed the
original case against IBM, Redhat, and Novell is none other than master
OS inventor Daniel Wallace who some think is merely a shill for both M$
and TSCOG.
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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