From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Aug 24 12:59:41 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from smtp02.primenet.com (smtp02.primenet.com [206.165.6.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3A4537B422 for ; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 12:59:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp02.primenet.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id MAA19455; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 12:57:24 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr06.primenet.com(206.165.6.206) via SMTP by smtp02.primenet.com, id smtpdAAARZaqXL; Thu Aug 24 12:57:11 2000 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr06.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA13209; Thu, 24 Aug 2000 12:59:11 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <200008241959.MAA13209@usr06.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Sun's web site To: tms2@mail.ptd.net (Thomas M. Sommers) Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 19:59:11 +0000 (GMT) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass), rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in (Rahul Siddharthan), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <399E0F70.ACD130B0@mail.ptd.net> from "Thomas M. Sommers" at Aug 19, 2000 12:39:12 AM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > Terry Lambert wrote: > > > Management has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. If they give > > > away their source, and some other company makes a killing with it, > > > management has breached that duty. > > > > Through malfeasance, by ignoring the market for the code themselves. > > Not necessarily malfeasance. They could simply be in error about the > potential profit to be had from the source. Malfeasance := wrongdoing or misconduct Ignorance is no excuse: misconduct is misconduct. Officers of corporations are being more and more frequently sued (and losing) as a result of blatantly bad decisions on their part due to a misrepresentation of their competence to make fiduciary decisions. > > > But if they use the GPL, it is very unlikely that any other > > > company will make that killing, and management will be in the clear. > > > > No. They will still be guilty of malfeasance. But they will also > > be guilty of criminal fraud, in that they covered up their malfeasance. > > Fraud means obtaining title to property by false pretences; it has > nothing to do with the hypothetical under discussion. Cover up implies > something done after an act to hide it; that also has nothing to do with > the hypothetical. Fraud := intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right I think the "legal right" part of this applies. But if not, the second definition of the word certainly does: Fraud := an act of deceiving or misrepresenting Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message