5 ms·

Unless I'm missing something, it sounds like McHardy has only dropped one of his "over 38" cases, due to the potential for a much more expensive, risky legal ba

Unless I'm missing something, it sounds like McHardy has only dropped one of his "over 38" cases, due to the potential for a much more expensive, risky legal battle. What's to prevent him from continuing his activities in other jurisdictions under less savvy judges? Also, how is this a victory by Linux? I see no mention of activity by the rest of the Linux community while Geniatech fought the legal battle.

Alan_Dillman 9y ago
Whats to prevent him? Remove him from development teams,remove his code from sources, and decline his contributions in future. Follow his activities(news about law suits are followed by FSF and GNU anyway) and contact litigators to inform them that he does not represent any open source contributions for these groups. Then he has no leg to stand (and sue) on.
- rdc12 9y ago
  From the article he made contributions starting at least in 99 (so 20 years ago), it will probably be non-trivial to remove all the code he has previously written. Even if you could remove all the code that he has claim too, that would only be for a future release, and most commercial users of Linux tend to use older, battle tested releases (especially for embedded products.
  - user5454 9y ago
    His first contribution was in 2002 according to the article: "[...] as Netfilter substantially existed since 1999, three years before Patrick's first contribution to Netfilter, and five years before joining the core team in 2004."
bsder 9y ago
I also don't understand how this is even an issue. The companies can make him go away simply by complying with the GPL, no? While what McHardy is doing may not be the most diplomatic stunt, it's kind of hard for me to sympathize when the companies wouldn't have to pay anything if they would just comply with the GPL license. If you don't want to comply with the GPL, use BSD or something. Am I missing something or could these companies sidestep all the legal BS with a minimal amount of effort.
- nordsieck 9y ago
  > The companies can make him go away simply by complying with the GPL, no? That's not clear. If you copy someone's work and don't have a license to use it then you've violated the copyright holder's rights. Just because you come into compliance with a license to copy the work doesn't absolve the violating party of the original liability. Additionally, there is some disagreement specifically around the GPLv2 and license re-instatement; specifically, it's not clear that license re-instatement is possible in the face of unwilling copyright holders.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  If that were true you could resolve a file sharing lawsuit by stopping your torrent client. It doesn’t work like that.
  - bsder 9y ago
    In the case of a torrent, the media companies generally are citing theft (rightly or wrongly) and damages. You can't just resolve theft legally by returning the thing stolen. I don't see anybody citing theft. And, quite often, license compliance IS legally resolved by coming into compliance. However, I still find it hard to sympathize. Don't want this problem--comply with the GPL or don't use GPL software. The GPL is functioning as written and intended. There is a reason so many companies consider GPL-licensed software to be radioactive.
    - tinus_hn 9y ago
      > I don't see anybody citing theft That's because it is a concept that doesn't exist. Creating a copy in violation of copyright is not theft. Copyright is the right to limit others ability to create copies. That limitation doesn't involve things that can be stolen.
- rst 9y ago
  Per text of the article, McHardy was asking for restitution involving not just future compliance, but also direct cash payments to him, of more than a million euros per violation, which had apparently already resulted in settlements which got him "at least a few million euros".
Buge 9y ago
>Also, how is this a victory by Linux? I see no mention of activity by the rest of the Linux community The Linux community suspended McHardy from being a core developer. The stable branch maintainer said the lawsuits "have threatened the confidence in our ecosystem". And the technical advisory board is asking developers to sign a statement that they are not seeking financial gain.
- larkeith 9y ago
  I'm not sure if McHardy's suspension as a core developer might weaken his legal ground (he still was a core developer for plenty of years, and presumably his contributions remain), but otherwise most of these actions seem preventative for future bad actors. However, in another article on the case [1], the below was noted: "sworn affidavits of senior kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman and current netfilter maintainer Pablo Neira were presented in support of some of [Geniatech's] claims. The contents of those are unfortunately not public, neither is the contents of the sworn affidavists presented by the plaintiff." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16562143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16562143
deleted 9y ago
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Alan_Dillman 9y ago

Whats to prevent him? Remove him from development teams,remove his code from sources, and decline his contributions in future. Follow his activities(news about law suits are followed by FSF and GNU anyway) and contact litigators to inform them that he does not represent any open source contributions for these groups. Then he has no leg to stand (and sue) on.

rdc12 9y ago
From the article he made contributions starting at least in 99 (so 20 years ago), it will probably be non-trivial to remove all the code he has previously written. Even if you could remove all the code that he has claim too, that would only be for a future release, and most commercial users of Linux tend to use older, battle tested releases (especially for embedded products.
- user5454 9y ago
  His first contribution was in 2002 according to the article: "[...] as Netfilter substantially existed since 1999, three years before Patrick's first contribution to Netfilter, and five years before joining the core team in 2004."

bsder 9y ago

I also don't understand how this is even an issue. The companies can make him go away simply by complying with the GPL, no? While what McHardy is doing may not be the most diplomatic stunt, it's kind of hard for me to sympathize when the companies wouldn't have to pay anything if they would just comply with the GPL license. If you don't want to comply with the GPL, use BSD or something. Am I missing something or could these companies sidestep all the legal BS with a minimal amount of effort.

nordsieck 9y ago
> The companies can make him go away simply by complying with the GPL, no? That's not clear. If you copy someone's work and don't have a license to use it then you've violated the copyright holder's rights. Just because you come into compliance with a license to copy the work doesn't absolve the violating party of the original liability. Additionally, there is some disagreement specifically around the GPLv2 and license re-instatement; specifically, it's not clear that license re-instatement is possible in the face of unwilling copyright holders.
tinus_hn 9y ago
If that were true you could resolve a file sharing lawsuit by stopping your torrent client. It doesn’t work like that.
- bsder 9y ago
  In the case of a torrent, the media companies generally are citing theft (rightly or wrongly) and damages. You can't just resolve theft legally by returning the thing stolen. I don't see anybody citing theft. And, quite often, license compliance IS legally resolved by coming into compliance. However, I still find it hard to sympathize. Don't want this problem--comply with the GPL or don't use GPL software. The GPL is functioning as written and intended. There is a reason so many companies consider GPL-licensed software to be radioactive.
  - tinus_hn 9y ago
    > I don't see anybody citing theft That's because it is a concept that doesn't exist. Creating a copy in violation of copyright is not theft. Copyright is the right to limit others ability to create copies. That limitation doesn't involve things that can be stolen.
rst 9y ago
Per text of the article, McHardy was asking for restitution involving not just future compliance, but also direct cash payments to him, of more than a million euros per violation, which had apparently already resulted in settlements which got him "at least a few million euros".

Buge 9y ago

>Also, how is this a victory by Linux? I see no mention of activity by the rest of the Linux community The Linux community suspended McHardy from being a core developer. The stable branch maintainer said the lawsuits "have threatened the confidence in our ecosystem". And the technical advisory board is asking developers to sign a statement that they are not seeking financial gain.

larkeith 9y ago
I'm not sure if McHardy's suspension as a core developer might weaken his legal ground (he still was a core developer for plenty of years, and presumably his contributions remain), but otherwise most of these actions seem preventative for future bad actors. However, in another article on the case [1], the below was noted: "sworn affidavits of senior kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman and current netfilter maintainer Pablo Neira were presented in support of some of [Geniatech's] claims. The contents of those are unfortunately not public, neither is the contents of the sworn affidavists presented by the plaintiff." [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16562143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16562143

deleted 9y ago

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