What we don't need [LWN.net]

What we don't need

Posted Nov 23, 2004 17:21 UTC (Tue) by huffd (guest, #10382)
Parent article: The Lawyers are coming

What if some friends of Microsoft collaborated on a lawsuit bringing bogus charges of copyright abuse toward an unknowing company. The company hires a Microsoft funded legal firm which in turn mis-represents the GPL, looses the case thus setting legal precedent. The judgement is that the company can stop using or bundling the offending software and walk away free and clear. The company being as weak in the head as they are the wallet cut their losses.

I wouldn't be surprised if during contract negotiations one of the questions from Microsoft isn't "Who are your 3 closest competitors?", and then to find out six months after you've signed a seven figure renewal contract that a competitor that's been driving you under because they switched to Linux a few years back is having legal difficulty.

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What we don't need

Posted Nov 23, 2004 19:05 UTC (Tue) by ajkessel (guest, #25721) [Link]

Under the scenario you present, future litigants could challenge the earlier litigation as "sham litigation." This kind of thing used to happen in the era of neighborhood racially-restrictive covenants: in order to establish the validity of a racially-restrictive covenant, one neighbor would claim that it intended to sell its house to someone of another race in order to provoke a lawsuit. But in fact that neighbor had no intent to sell the property and just wanted to preclude future claims. See, e.g., http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1984/S... (Hansberry v. Lee).

In any case, it's important not to overstate the effect of a "precedent" making decision on the GPL. Although courts are likely to look to other court decisions interpreting the same document, future litigants are not going to be bound by a judgment to which they were not a party.