4 ms·
FSF annual budget is on order of 1.3M [1], a tiny portion of which can be spent on legal fees, the rest being normal operations - people and hardware and office
by ChrisLomont 5y ago
FSF annual budget is on order of 1.3M [1], a tiny portion of which can be spent on legal fees, the rest being normal operations - people and hardware and offices and such. So, if lucky, FSF can afford $200k / year in a court battle.
Google v Oracle racked up around $2M a year for google in legal fees alone (at least early on - I didn't find a final cost for the decade of litigation) [2]. And either could afford vastly more as needed, especially if it could simply bankrupt their opponent and get a default win.
I don't think the FSF can even remotely cover such costs.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation
[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-wants-4-million-from-oracle-for-legal-costs/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-wants-4-million-from-or...
- sokoloff 5y agoI think it’s a mistake to look at the FSF peacetime budget and conclude they couldn’t sustain a war. If Apple or Google were foolish enough to allow themselves to be pitted head-to-head with the FSF on a clear AGPL violation (the premise of TFA), FSF would easily raise the money required (in dollars and in pro-bono work). I’m not even especially a fan of AGPL and I’d crack my wallet open pretty wide for the FSF side here.