4 ms·

How is it glacial? This is resolved with a copyright infringement lawsuit. Filing the suit is entirely on them.

by tapoxi 4y ago

worik 4y ago
> How is it glacial? These cases take years In other parts of the (in)justice system people languish in jail, and on bail, waiting for their day in court. The legal systems of Western "democracies " have become a money fountain, and are loosing the sense of justice
- SllX 4y ago
  Filing a suit does not take years. If you know you have a case, decide if you’re going to sue, if yes, then you bang out the paperwork and file it with the appropriate court. Trying to fight what ought to be a lawsuit through PR isn’t going to get you any closer to an injunction or discovery but is a red flag that maybe the one engaging in the PR battle doesn’t feel confident they have a case. EDIT: I dug into it a little. SFC appears to be dug into a lawsuit against Vizio. It makes sense, even law firms have finite resources, and there’s some indication that the outcome of this lawsuit could give a clearer indication of the viability of a suit against John Deere. My original point on the time it takes to file a suit stands though.
  - simoncion 4y ago
    > Filing a suit does not take years. Correct. Closing out the suit takes years. As was said: > These cases take years
  - pabs3 4y ago
    A suit against John Deere is a lot harder in the way that the Vizio suit is being done (there they are suing as an end-user, a third-party beneficiary of the GPL contract), because you would have to be a Deere customer first (presumably that would cost more money than Conservancy's budget for the Vizio lawsuit) and if you do sue, maybe they stop selling you tractors or software updates or stop taking your phone calls. A regular copyright violation lawsuit might be a better option.
kmeisthax 4y ago
Yes, but the endgame of the GPL is not to generate copyright infringement lawsuits[0]. It's to compel modifiers of the code to license their changes back and respect user freedom - i.e. to keep the software effectively uncopyrighted. If you sue in a court of law, they will give you money damages, and maybe an injunction specifically requiring the developer delete their copy of the program. Under no circumstances will a court demand specific performance of GPL obligations to release source code. But that's what the SFC wants. So the only way to get people to comply with the GPL is to use the threat of a lawsuit to encourage compliance. This is contrary to what we normally think of with copyright litigation, but that's mostly because the lawsuits we see are either breakdowns of negotiation, or against individual infringers and pirate sites that would never be granted a license under any circumstances whatsoever. When you want a licensee to actually do something, you are better off threatening litigation and negotiating rather than going straight to the nuclear option. [0] Nobody told that to the Lawnmower Man[1] unfortunately [1] Larry Ellison
- nier 4y ago
  Did you just anthropomorphize Larry Ellison?
  - serf 4y ago
    it sometimes strengthens a metaphor to anthropomorphize the non human entities.
    - glandium 4y ago
      I'm pretty sure GP and GGP were referring to a talk by Bryan Cantrill. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246
- pabs3 4y ago
  Most of these violating companies don't care about lawsuits, the big ones could probably bankrupt anyone trying to sue them by dragging things out and the small ones just make a product, fold the company and start a new one. I found the latest Conservancy lawsuit interesting, they are suing as a third-party beneficiary of the GPL (ie as a recipient of GPL code), not as a copyright holder. They are suing solely for compliance, not for damages. Hopefully they get back their costs too though. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

How is it glacial? This is resolved with a copyright infringement lawsuit. Filing the suit is entirely on them.

by tapoxi 4y ago

How is it glacial? This is resolved with a copyright infringement lawsuit. Filing the suit is entirely on them.

> How is it glacial? These cases take years In other parts of the (in)justice system people languish in jail, and on bail, waiting for their day in court. The legal systems of Western "democracies " have become a money fountain, and are loosing the sense of justice

SllX 4y ago
Filing a suit does not take years. If you know you have a case, decide if you’re going to sue, if yes, then you bang out the paperwork and file it with the appropriate court. Trying to fight what ought to be a lawsuit through PR isn’t going to get you any closer to an injunction or discovery but is a red flag that maybe the one engaging in the PR battle doesn’t feel confident they have a case. EDIT: I dug into it a little. SFC appears to be dug into a lawsuit against Vizio. It makes sense, even law firms have finite resources, and there’s some indication that the outcome of this lawsuit could give a clearer indication of the viability of a suit against John Deere. My original point on the time it takes to file a suit stands though.
- simoncion 4y ago
  > Filing a suit does not take years. Correct. Closing out the suit takes years. As was said: > These cases take years
- pabs3 4y ago
  A suit against John Deere is a lot harder in the way that the Vizio suit is being done (there they are suing as an end-user, a third-party beneficiary of the GPL contract), because you would have to be a Deere customer first (presumably that would cost more money than Conservancy's budget for the Vizio lawsuit) and if you do sue, maybe they stop selling you tractors or software updates or stop taking your phone calls. A regular copyright violation lawsuit might be a better option.

kmeisthax 4y ago

Yes, but the endgame of the GPL is not to generate copyright infringement lawsuits[0]. It's to compel modifiers of the code to license their changes back and respect user freedom - i.e. to keep the software effectively uncopyrighted. If you sue in a court of law, they will give you money damages, and maybe an injunction specifically requiring the developer delete their copy of the program. Under no circumstances will a court demand specific performance of GPL obligations to release source code. But that's what the SFC wants. So the only way to get people to comply with the GPL is to use the threat of a lawsuit to encourage compliance. This is contrary to what we normally think of with copyright litigation, but that's mostly because the lawsuits we see are either breakdowns of negotiation, or against individual infringers and pirate sites that would never be granted a license under any circumstances whatsoever. When you want a licensee to actually do something, you are better off threatening litigation and negotiating rather than going straight to the nuclear option. [0] Nobody told that to the Lawnmower Man[1] unfortunately [1] Larry Ellison

nier 4y ago
Did you just anthropomorphize Larry Ellison?
- serf 4y ago
  it sometimes strengthens a metaphor to anthropomorphize the non human entities.
  - glandium 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure GP and GGP were referring to a talk by Bryan Cantrill. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246
pabs3 4y ago
Most of these violating companies don't care about lawsuits, the big ones could probably bankrupt anyone trying to sue them by dragging things out and the small ones just make a product, fold the company and start a new one. I found the latest Conservancy lawsuit interesting, they are suing as a third-party beneficiary of the GPL (ie as a recipient of GPL code), not as a copyright holder. They are suing solely for compliance, not for damages. Hopefully they get back their costs too though. https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html