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And, the GPL will be proved to be effective in a US court! | 197 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
And, the GPL will be proved to be effective in a US court!
Authored by: DannyB on Friday, September 14 2012 @ 10:34 AM EDT
There may however be an undesirable side effect. The typical PB, when faced with the knowledge that Twin Peaks have been thrashed in court for GPL violation, may not take sufficient time to ask why, and just place a complete embargo on the use of GPL code in their business. We know there is no need for that . . .
I disagree that this is an undesirable side effect.

Unlike a decade ago, there are now plenty of businesses that recognize the value of open source and embrace it. If a PHB wants to make his business uncompetitive based on FUD, then I don't have a problem with that. Culling the herd, and all that.

Yes, as you say "we know there is no need for that". But evolution. Survival of the fittest. If a business makes itself less competitive and therefore lowers its survival characteristics because of stupidity, then I don't see the problem.

Frankly, I think it is a good thing. Businesses that embrace open source should be at a competitive advantage and those that don't embrace it should be at a disadvantage. Finally, things shaping up to be like we would have wanted a decade ago.

I always believed that open source had the right survival characteristics due to everyone leveraging everyone else's efforts (eg "stone soup" effect) that FOSS would be the eventual winner in the software world. I thought it would take decades. But it very well might happen before the end of this decade. Closed source has a huge short term advantage. FOSS has the long term advantage. Be patient.

---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Copyright violation, not GPL violation
Authored by: Christian on Friday, September 14 2012 @ 11:01 AM EDT
One way to make things better is to correctly call it a copyright violation, not
a GPL violation. Twin Peaks took someone else's code and sold it as their own.
This is a copyright violation. The GPL has nothing to do with it.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

GPL supported by JMRI case
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 14 2012 @ 01:15 PM EDT
I don't have the details, but JMRI(*) was successfully defended under the
Artistic (CC) License when another individual took their code and tried to sue
them for patent violations. The CAFC no less, decided that JMRI was the rightful
owner of the code. A Google search on "jmri court case" provides a
boatload of references.

(*) Java Model Railroad Interface

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

And, the GPL will be proved to be effective in a US court!
Authored by: luvr on Friday, September 14 2012 @ 02:44 PM EDT
“The typical PB, when faced with the knowledge that Twin Peaks have been thrashed in court for GPL violation, may not take sufficient time to ask why, and just place a complete embargo on the use of GPL code in their business.”

Ha, ha, ha, ha, haaa... And then, refusing to let any GPL code in, they select something like Twin Peaks as one of their preferred software vendors... Great thinking!

Oh, right... It's the “Typical PB” (PHB?) we're talking about here...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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