Eric S. Raymond on GPL and BSD licenses. & Microsoft coming to Linux

[Yigal Chripun]

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?
even if the chance is tiny, it is not zero.
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".

>> 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. 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.
this concept can also aid people in their cases. for example, there was 
one case of a man suing his insurance company for not paying for an 
implant (heart I think). the company said in the policy that all 
implants are covered but in the small letters said it will not pay for a 
very specific equipment part that is essential to that operation. a 
reasonable man doesn't need a M.D to sign such a policy and therefore 
the company had to pay.


> 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.

> 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!
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...



> -Steve