3 ms·
> Publishing original software is protected expression. That means Jack Shit in a world where a lawsuit can ruin a person's life regardless of its legal merit,
by p-e-w 3y ago
> Publishing original software is protected expression.
That means Jack Shit in a world where a lawsuit can ruin a person's life regardless of its legal merit, with zero consequences for the corporation that filed it even if it gets tossed out by a judge eventually.
LPT: Live as if human/constitutional rights didn't exist. Because if push ever comes to shove, you will quite possibly find that they indeed don't exist in practice.
- rezonant 3y agoBut there are consequences. Even if the financial costs are not meaningful to a big company, the backlash created by such actions can have wide ranging implications, from lost sales to loss of the public mindshare, to attracting legislative attention.
- smashah 3y agoWe are in an age of shamelessness and self-interest. There's no story in the world that will get people to stop using services like Whatsapp or Instagram. The only thing stopping these big companies is potentially setting a legal precedent that interop projects are legal. They can potentially win such a case as it stands because the targets for their threats are few and far between. If we as digital humans want to solidify this digital right then we need to have a unified front against threats like this. That means we need to have an OSS union behind which companies and individuals can unify if a precedent setting case ever does come up