Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 13:38:32 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: dyson@iquest.net, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The GPL and the Robinson-Patman Act Message-ID: <36D2AF58.A2FB5E82@uk.radan.com> References: <4.1.19990222155920.0404e9d0@mail.lariat.org> <4.1.19990223010632.00b594b0@mail.lariat.org>
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Brett Glass wrote:
>
> At 03:02 AM 2/23/99 -0500, John S. Dyson wrote:
>
> >RMS's lawyers are likely bigger than a reasonable size of us could pool
> >together and afford to hire.
>
> Why? Does he have huge amounts of cash? If so, why does he live in
> a cubicle at MIT?
>
I've been following the threads about the GPL with interest, but one
thing puzzles me, and now that someone has mentioned lawyers it seems
an appropriate time to ask.
Surely the only way to enforce the terms of either the GPL or Berkeley
licence is through the courts, but could any organization in the free
software world actually afford such litigation (which I imagine would
run into millions of dollars in the US)?
If FreeBSD Inc. were to take GPL'd code and add it to the source tree
under a Berkeley-style licence what could the FSF do about it? The 2
comments quoted above suggest that the FSF could possibly afford legal
action against FreeBSD, but what if it was Sun, IBM, M$ etc. I can't
believe that they could afford to take on a company of that size.
In other words does this not mean that the GPL etc. relies on other
people being honourable and observing the terms of the licence even
though they may not agree with those terms?
--
FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org
My Webpage http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~markov
_______________________________________________________________
Mark Ovens, CNC Apps Engineer, Radan Computational Ltd. Bath UK
CAD/CAM solutions for Sheetmetal Working Industry
mailto:marko@uk.radan.com http://www.radan.com
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