U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit? [LWN.net]

U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 21, 2007 1:26 UTC (Fri) by atai (subscriber, #10977)
In reply to: U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit? by ndye
Parent article: SFLC files first U.S. GPL violation lawsuit

Indeed this seems fast compared to past violation cases handled by the FSF, such as the Vidomi GPL violation case in which code from VirtualDub, a Microsoft Windows GPLed video editor, was incorporated into a proprietary program and the FSF got involved through negotiation with the offending party on behalf of the original author to reach a settlement.

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U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 21, 2007 2:12 UTC (Fri) by louie (subscriber, #3285) [Link]

According to the complaint, Busybox (and SFLC) tried to contact them, and got no response.

U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 21, 2007 3:10 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

More to that point by Rob Landley on Groklaw here. Basically it seems that the firm stopped corresponding, leaving asking the courts as the only way to get satisfaction.

Rob Landley of Busybox on Groklaw

Posted Sep 21, 2007 3:21 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

Rob wrote this:

It's hard to engage company principals when the company won't take your calls. (Or your emails. And signs for a fedex containing your complaint and your contact info, but haven't replied at all a week later.) The message board shows they aware of the issue internally and that they are capable of responding.

Ok, hypothetical: When a company is confronted by users, they talk trash. Afterwards, when confronted by lawyers, they clam up. Is this a recipe for avoiding a lawsuit?

The SFLC may not quite be at IBM's "blacken the skies of Utah with lawyers" level, but they're not empty cease and desist letters with no resources to back it up either.

To quote lolcats: They are serious lawyers, this is serious lawsuit. (Against invisible defendant at the time...)

As for venue, the SFLC is located in New York, so it's convenient for them to ask for that as the venue. (There was some legal case noticing that the internet is everywhere that's precedent for this, they explained it to me on the phone but it's not my area.) Since copyright is federal this seems to me as much a matter of convenience as anything, but IANAL. :) (Yeah, I know, different precedents in different circuit courts. Not my area. This is why one _has_ lawyers. I happily defer to their expertise in matters of appropriate venue...)

P.S. Thank PJ for all this, she introduced Erik and me to the SFLC back when we declared the "hall of shame" a failure and turned to her for suggestions. We're pretty happy so far... :)

and this, saying that using the SFLC is Busybox's response to the ineffectual vendor response to the Busybox Hall of Shame.