Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:13:57 -0400 From: "Thomas M. Sommers" <tms2@mail.ptd.net> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Sun's web site Message-ID: <39A60095.FFBCF09@mail.ptd.net> References: <200008241959.MAA13209@usr06.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert wrote: > > > 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. The law distingiushes between malfeasance and misfeasance. > 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. That was my point (although it has nothing to do with misrepresenting competence). If you want to release source, doing so under the GPL (instead of a BSD-like license) will reduce the chance of a successful suit against you, because it will be harder to prove that you gave away a potentially large profit. > > > > 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 Generally, if you legally have posession of something, but convert it to your own use, it is embezzlement; if you illegally take possession it is theft; if you take title by means of deception it is fraud. > 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 This is not the legal definition. None of this applies to the case of a bad decision by corporate managers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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