About the calculus for the project [LWN.net]

About the calculus for the project

Posted Feb 9, 2012 23:44 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789)
In reply to: About the calculus for the project by khim
Parent article: A tempest in a toybox

I'm the ex-maintainer of busybox, who started toybox before I actually did the last release of busybox. I'm the one who _started_ the busybox license enforcement lawsuits (and recruited Erik Andersen in into it, and yes I still have my old email).

You're claiming that my new project might be considered an infringement facilitator AGAINST MY OLD PROJECT, and that stopping the lawsuits I _started_ might somehow legally do... something?

Your honestly believe that the legal system can and should forbid people from doing new things that compete with (and obsolete) their own previous work? And you take this position in defense of "freedom", as defined by the FSF?

I ask seriously: are you crazy? Do you need some kind of diagnosis and treatment? (I already _know_ the FSF does...)

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About the calculus for the project

Posted Feb 10, 2012 10:06 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

You're claiming that my new project might be considered an infringement facilitator AGAINST MY OLD PROJECT, and that stopping the lawsuits I _started_ might somehow legally do... something?

Oh yea. Absolutely. This is what this lawsuit is all about. Oracle even explicitly claimed that the fact that the very same people are working on Dalvik that worked on Java decades ago increases Google's liability. Or perhaps you live in some other world where such things never happen?

Your honestly believe that the legal system can and should forbid people from doing new things that compete with (and obsolete) their own previous work?

That's different question. I know that the legal system can and does forbid people from doing new things that compete with their own previous work. I'm not saying it's good thing - that's another thing entirely.

And you take this position in defense of "freedom", as defined by the FSF?

Law exist without FSF's freedom. Government changes it, not FSF.

I've pointed that what you are doing is probably illegal and that you can be sued for doing it in the future. This is almost certainly true. But I'm not saying that this is what FSF should do. Just because you can sue someone does not mean you should. That's different story altogether.

I ask seriously: are you crazy? Do you need some kind of diagnosis and treatment?

Me? I'm absolutely sane. The copyright world is crazy - but sadly I don't know how to cure it.

About the calculus for the project

Posted Feb 10, 2012 17:15 UTC (Fri) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (1 responses)

> That's different question. I know that the legal system can and does
> forbid people from doing new things that compete with their own previous
> work.

Not in California or Texas it doesn't. ("Right to work" states.) There's rather a lot of case law on this. Silicon Valley was _built_ on the "traitorous eight" from Shockley Semiconductor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight

Honestly, if you work in the industry you get to know this stuff...

Rob

(Oratroll is suing over patents, sounds like they're attempting to establish treble damages for wilful violation, ala http://www.ipwatchdog.com/patent/advanced-patent/patent-i... . Which is in fact the reason Linus gives for not reading software patents.)

About the calculus for the project

Posted Feb 10, 2012 17:38 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight

Honestly, if you work in the industry you get to know this stuff...

Sure. These tales are very well-known. But that happened half-century ago. Companies worked diligently to rectify "the problem" all that time. Today the outcome of such lawsuit is quite different to predict.

Oratroll is suing over patents

Nope. Copyrights are very much in dispute, too. And outcome is not yet certain. And I'm sure if Oracle will be repelled this time then it'll cooperate with Disneys and SONYs of the world to change the law to make sure next time they'll win.

In fact the whole SFC "problem" have one trivial and quite logical solution: change the law, reduce copyright power and make what SFC is doing illegal. Sadly Disneys and SONYs of the world reject this solution out of hand because it'll reduce their copyright power, too. Well, as long as that's the case don't expect me to feel any sympathy to their plight. They brought it on themselves.