They could but the case will not go very far

Posted Jul 31, 2009 8:34 UTC (Fri) by mjthayer (guest, #39183)
In reply to: They could but the case will not go very far by khim
Parent article: A new GCC runtime library license snag?

>> Then, I sell the application to a proprietary company. It is till GPLv2, but the company owns the copyright.

>> Couldn't at that point the company sue Debian?

> Not yet. Since there are reasonable interpretation which leaves the Debian in the clear the court will be very reluctant to give anything to the new company.

I don't think that it is enough for Debian to be able to find a reasonable interpretation that speaks in their favour. I think that there is a problem if there is just a single reasonable interpretation which does *not* leave Debian in the clear. Debian don't want to be taken to court at all, not even if they are reasonably sure (you can never be more than reasonably sure) of winning, as it costs them time and money they would surely rather use for other things.

There are exactly one way to do this - and it's not what Debian wants...

Posted Aug 2, 2009 4:34 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Debian don't want to be taken to court at all, not even if they are reasonably sure (you can never be more than reasonably sure) of winning, as it costs them time and money they would surely rather use for other things.

Then they should close the shop. It's more-or-less impossible to do so. Most programs out there infringe more then one patent, for example. Sure, these patents are bogus, but if you are determined to avoid court at all - you should remove all programs from distribution and since distribution with zero programs or files is pretty much useless it'll be the end for Debian...