Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#51

Post by dizzystar » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:14 AM UTC

boomlinde wrote: post #44

dizzystar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was under WTFL, the company would be able to release everything closed-source, which is exactly what the open source community is trying to discourage. It also makes no sense to sue the companies violating the licenses. They would be more inclined to move to a closed-source option with a known fee, since the very product you are using has an ambiguous cost attached to it. For example, I have deep disdain for pe…

> It also makes no sense to sue the companies violating the licenses. They would be more inclined to move to a closed-source option with a known fee, since the very product you are using has an ambiguous cost attached to it. It makes perfect sense to sue a company that fails to comply with the license. What doesn't make sense is for anyone with a two line contribution to the kernel to sue anyone for not complying wit…

I agree in some sense. My issue is pulling the trigger to fast and too hard, and there doesn't seem to be a good answer to that.

Even though I do my best to follow licenses, I may be making a mistake somewhere. If I heard a case where was sued for $1M to a GPLv2 software, I'd strongly consider moving over to a propriety product and pay $10 a month to mitigate my risk.

Remember that every uninstall is one less user, which is one less incentive to maintain the product, and once that gets close to zero, it's game over.

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#52

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:26 AM UTC

shakna wrote: post #14

belltaco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the companies that are forced to pay out large amounts are going to be more careful next time and release their contributions as source code. Same with other companies that see this going on. That's a win for Linux and GPL code.

In my experience, they'll either be much more careful about hiding their reliance, or just strip Linux out of everything. Not contribute back.

And you think by not punishing such companies then they'll come in to compliance?

It strikes me such companies never intended to comply with their legal obligations - make that position financially untenable and use the money to support development/developers who are compliant.

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#53

Post by neotek » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:27 AM UTC

shdon wrote: post #40

I'll admit this is offtopic, but why on earth do they insist on putting an unrelated video on autoplay at the top of the page? I'm there to read the article and just when I've read the first few sentences, I get distracted by movement and the sound of Linux Torvalds' voice. Something about DRM and GPLv3 which are not at all related to the article contents. Sure, it might be an interesting video, but on autoplay... re…

You can disable autoplay in Chrome by navigating to chrome://flags and setting the "autoplay policy" config option to require explicit user activation.

In Firefox, navigate to about:config, and change media.autoplay.enabled to false.

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#54

Post by shakna » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:28 AM UTC

older wrote: post #36

shakna wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, they'll either be much more careful about hiding their reliance, or just strip Linux out of everything. Not contribute back.

Could you give an example? Any company that stripped Linux out of their product?

Not without breaching an NDA.

But how about a public case?

Verizon got caught breaching the GPL with Busybox.[!] At the end of the day, they agreed to become compliant... And Busybox is no longer a product they use or distribute. [0][1]

[!] https://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2008/mar/17/busybox-ver...

[0] https://www.verizon.com/support/residential/internet/equipme...

[1] https://github.com/verizon

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#55

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:34 AM UTC

dizzystar wrote: post #51

boomlinde wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also makes no sense to sue the companies violating the licenses. They would be more inclined to move to a closed-source option with a known fee, since the very product you are using has an ambiguous cost attached to it. It makes perfect sense to sue a company that fails to comply with the license. What doesn't make sense is for anyone with a two line contribution to the kernel to sue anyone for not complying wit…

I agree in some sense. My issue is pulling the trigger to fast and too hard, and there doesn't seem to be a good answer to that. Even though I do my best to follow licenses, I may be making a mistake somewhere. If I heard a case where was sued for $1M to a GPLv2 software, I'd strongly consider moving over to a propriety product and pay $10 a month to mitigate my risk. Remember that every uninstall is one less user, w…

If you heard of a case where someone without a driving license was punished, would you - having done your due diligence to get a license and conky with its requirements - get worried you also would be punished and so choose to always take taxis?

Are these non-compliant companies using cracked versions of other closed-source software? I'll bet they pay for their MS licenses, because they know MS will sue them if they don't.

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#56

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:39 AM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #41

megous wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the goal is achieving compliance (something that would benefit everyone), not punishment (something that just benefits the author).

It's also rather obvious that pursuing a policy based on punishment would hinder the adoption of any software licensed under any free software license, and also have a negative impact on the community's public image.

I don't see how that's clear at all - it's only harming those who knowingly choose not to comply. Suing such people says we care about making software (F)OSS, we care enough to ensure people who make a profit from open source give back to the community.

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#57

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:46 AM UTC

exikyut wrote: post #12

julienfr112 wrote: post #2

In fact, he acted like a bounty hunter : chasing wrongdoers ( companies that do not comply with the GPLv2) for his own personal gain. If you are serious about the GPL license, you should also be serious about punishing companies that violate it. And if the Free Software Foundation has not enough guns, why not let bounty hunters do the job ?

Because there's no legal and/or social infrastructure in place that demands the bounty hunter shares their winnings. The way things are right now, the bounty hunter could argue that the very idea of the statement above is absurd - and that demonstrates how broken things are. I can't help but agree more and more as time goes by that maybe Linux is getting too big for its own good. I do wonder how it'll topple.

There's legal precedent. If one dev proves their copyright was infringed by failure to comply with the contractual obligations set through the OSS license, then the court more than likely will find for every other dev too. The "bounty hunter" will get paid the damages against them, not the damages against the community, there's no reason to disperse them.

If someone does a hit-and-run and hits several people with their car, one of those people suing and getting damages from the malfeasant isn't a bad thing, nor is it something we should frown on IMO.

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#58

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:52 AM UTC

neotek wrote: post #53

shdon wrote: post #40

I'll admit this is offtopic, but why on earth do they insist on putting an unrelated video on autoplay at the top of the page? I'm there to read the article and just when I've read the first few sentences, I get distracted by movement and the sound of Linux Torvalds' voice. Something about DRM and GPLv3 which are not at all related to the article contents. Sure, it might be an interesting video, but on autoplay... re…

You can disable autoplay in Chrome by navigating to chrome://flags and setting the "autoplay policy" config option to require explicit user activation. In Firefox, navigate to about:config, and change media.autoplay.enabled to false.

The video autoplayed for me so I decided to check this setting which I was 99% sure I had already set at some point in the past (I use Chrome).

Turns out I had and ZDNet is somehow getting around it.

Another site for the blacklist, then.

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#59

Post by rdc12 » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:53 AM UTC

Alan_Dillman wrote: post #42

larkeith wrote: post #5

Unless I'm missing something, it sounds like McHardy has only dropped one of his "over 38" cases, due to the potential for a much more expensive, risky legal battle. What's to prevent him from continuing his activities in other jurisdictions under less savvy judges? Also, how is this a victory by Linux? I see no mention of activity by the rest of the Linux community while Geniatech fought the legal battle.

Whats to prevent him? Remove him from development teams,remove his code from sources, and decline his contributions in future. Follow his activities(news about law suits are followed by FSF and GNU anyway) and contact litigators to inform them that he does not represent any open source contributions for these groups. Then he has no leg to stand (and sue) on.

From the article he made contributions starting at least in 99 (so 20 years ago), it will probably be non-trivial to remove all the code he has previously written.

Even if you could remove all the code that he has claim too, that would only be for a future release, and most commercial users of Linux tend to use older, battle tested releases (especially for embedded products.

Re: Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

#60

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:57 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #29

paulsutter wrote: post #17

If anyone needed another reason to avoid GPL software here you go. I thought the whole idea of open source was to avoid litigious assholes.

> I thought the whole idea of open source was to avoid litigious assholes. How is that? Not sure what you mean. Writing everything from scratch in-house is how you usually avoid litigious assholes. When using someone else's stuff it is a good idea to comply with the licensing terms. That's also a valid strategy to avoid litigation.

I'm pretty sure GP barely skimmed the headline, saw that it somehow confirmed their own preconceived ideas, saw an opportunity to attack open source, and posted a comment to that effect.

It's barely worth the effort of downvoting, let alone a considered reply.