From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 23 10:32: 2 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from haldjas.folklore.ee (Haldjas.folklore.ee [193.40.6.121]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8DD3B114CD for ; Tue, 23 Feb 1999 10:31:22 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee) Received: from haldjas.folklore.ee (haldjas.folklore.ee [172.17.2.1] (may be forged)) by haldjas.folklore.ee (8.8.8/8.8.4) with SMTP id UAA22318; Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:30:48 +0200 (EET) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:30:48 +0200 (EET) From: Narvi To: Mark Ovens Cc: Brett Glass , dyson@iquest.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The GPL and the Robinson-Patman Act In-Reply-To: <36D2AF58.A2FB5E82@uk.radan.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 23 Feb 1999, Mark Ovens wrote: > 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. > a) it would be the worst thing to do - for FreeBSD a complete PR catastrophe. b) they would not depend upon courts but on publicity and flaming and boycotts, etc. Sander There is no love, no good, no happiness and no future - all these are just illusions. > 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 > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message