Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 19:59:11 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: tms2@mail.ptd.net (Thomas M. Sommers) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass), rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in (Rahul Siddharthan), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Sun's web site Message-ID: <200008241959.MAA13209@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <399E0F70.ACD130B0@mail.ptd.net> from "Thomas M. Sommers" at Aug 19, 2000 12:39:12 AM
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> 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
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