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A legal attack in Brazil
The recent reports that
Microsoft has filed suit against Sérgio Amadeu, the president of the
Brazilian National Institute for Information Technology and a leader of
Brazil's move toward free software, have upset many in the community. This
suit looks very much like an attempt to intimidate a government which has
been making increasingly friendly noises about free software. A closer
look shows that, while this may be the case, there probably is not too much
to be concerned about here.
For the curious, Microsoft's complaint is available in PDF format. That complaint comes down to the following: Mr. Amadeu compared Microsoft's tactics to those of drug dealers, and Microsoft doesn't like it. So Microsoft has filed a a "demand for explanation" aimed at getting Mr. Amadeu to retract his statements, or, at least, to back them up in court. The "drug dealer" comment was, beyond doubt, over the top. Many public statements made by Microsoft about free software are, beyond doubt, equally over the top, as is Microsoft's reaction in this case. Microsoft seems unlikely to get very far with this particular complaint, especially in the face of public statements like:
As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal
ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure
out how to collect sometime in the next decade .
(Bill Gates, 1998, quoted in News.com). The most likely result of this action may well be to convince more governmental employees that dealing with Microsoft is generally a bad idea. This kind of ham-fisted attack seems unlikely to slow any government's move toward Linux, though it may make the people involved watch their words a little more carefully. (Log in to post comments)
A legal attack in Brazil Posted Jun 24, 2004 8:00 UTC (Thu) by bastiaan (guest, #5170) [Link] Brilliant, that Bill Gates quote!And the best thing of it all is that Microsofts response to the drug-dealer statement will make more people aware of their questionable business practices. MS is doing our p.r. for us.
Lawyerama Posted Jun 24, 2004 13:55 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] Hello folks. Do anyone has a Portuguese / pt_BR_lawyerese link to the referred PDF? My EN lawyerese is not good enough to understand which (specific) kind of action is this.Anyway, it's controversial in our case law if firms can be in the passive pole of "Defamation" crime, which seems to be one of the bases for this. Can anyone help me here?
Lawyerama Posted Jun 24, 2004 16:33 UTC (Thu) by cross (guest, #13601) [Link] > Hello folks. Do anyone has a Portuguese / pt_BR_lawyerese link to the> referred PDF? My EN lawyerese is not good enough to understand which > (specific) kind of action is this. http://www.softwarelivre.org/
Lawyerama Posted Jul 1, 2004 13:55 UTC (Thu) by leandro (subscriber, #1460) [Link] > it's controversial in our case law if firms can be in the passive pole of "Defamation" crime, which seems to be one of the bases for this. Granted, but here it is more of a pressure tatic of menace than a real threat of being eventually convicted.
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