[Gllug] SmoothWall Corporate

[Richard Cottrill]

I think that's just the point. New laws aren't made until they're tested in
court. The GPL is only as good as the electrons that it flies about on until
a court says otherwise. Likewise for most EULAs BTW.

I think any decent judge would demand that all of the steps 1-4 are covered
before they'd even get into court. I fully expect the general counsel would
love to find some recalcitrant developer to REALLY thrash out the limits of
the GPL. In court the ambiguities cease to be ambiguous if the court decides
what they REALLY mean. The law rests on the decisions of judges; everyone
else (RMS, the FSF counsel, politicians, Microsoft, me - maybe more then the
others :-) is just pretending .

Richard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gllug-admin at linux.co.uk [mailto:gllug-admin at linux.co.uk]On Behalf
> Of Nix
> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 12:06 PM
> To: gllug at linux.co.uk
> Subject: Re: [Gllug] SmoothWall Corporate
>
>
> On 18 Jan 2002, Nick Mailer said:
> > Yes. Someone should do a code-audit. Eben Moglen (general counsel to the
> > FSF) is itching to prove the GPL in court once and for all..
>
> Really? I've seen no evidence of this at all.
>
> The general procedure when a GPL violation is encountered is roughly
>
> 1 project maintainer emails the violators, draws violators' attention,
>   and asks to fix it
> 2 if nothing happens, rms at gnu.org (or licensing at gnu.org?) does the same
>   thing
> 3 if nothing happens, a nice legal letter gets sent to the violators'
>   lawyers (not sure if RMS or Eben Moglen sends it, probably the latter
>   for the form of the thing)
> 4 if nothing happens, a nasty letter gets sent, similarly
> 5 if nothing happens, it would get to court.
>
> I don't think it's ever got beyond step 3; *certainly* it's never got
> beyond step 4. The corporate lawyers tend to read the GPL and run around
> screaming because while it's ambiguous in places it's not very
> ambiuguous, and it's simple. Lawyers hate that. :)
>
> --
> `I personally would not stand in a river waving a graphite rod above my
>  head during a thunderstorm.' --- Harry Jackson
>
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