Wallace's Second Anti-GPL Suit Loses 303
Enterprise OpenSource Magazine is reporting that Daniel Wallace's second Anti-GPL lawsuit has gone down in flames. From the (short) article: "The judge wrote that 'Antitrust laws are for 'the protection of competition, not competitors.' In this case, the GPL benefits consumers by allowing for the distribution of software at no cost, other than the cost of the media on which the software is distributed. 'When the plaintiff is a poor champion of consumers, a court must be especially careful not to grant relief that may undercut the proper function of antitrust.' Because he has not identified an anticompetitive effect, Wallace has failed to allege a cognizable antitrust injury.'"
Crap link in submission... (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wallace_(plai
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060320
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
Oh cool! You're on your way to a "+5 Troll". I haven't seen one in a Looonng time!
Also, it's not "dumping" unless it's:
Coming from another country.
And, the industry that's "victimized" has a shit load of political clout - Agriculture, Auto and Steel as examples.
SysCon sucks... (Score:5, Informative)
They said they wouldn't print any more Maurene O'Gara articles after she went crazy stalking Pamela Jones and making fun of her religion. So now they're printing MoG's articles but without any attribution.
As always with MoG, the article is misleading. The judge didn't accept the facts as true. To dismiss a lawsuit the judge has to say: "If these were all true, should the case go forward?" In this case the answer is no. The "if" is important.
Anyway here is the original article [slashdot.org] where the Daniel Wallace stupidness started. The actual syscon link is offline because syscon took all MoG's stuff offline.
Daniel Wallace is a net kook. I wouldn't be surprised if he created a slashdot login to respond anonymously to this article. He always posts about how the GPL is a contract not a license. He is not a legal genius but he is funny.
Maurene O'Gara is evil. She lies constantly. I've never seen anyone who is as sick and twisted as she is. I despise her.
Re:Who is Wallace and why did he sue? (Score:5, Informative)
The Wiki and other articles is very uninformative of who this guy is and his motivations and why he would even go out of his way to this. It is like the man spontaneously came into existence just to sue.
Although people have sued other over less...
Nothing, really (Score:5, Informative)
So what does that say about the Microsoft antitrust case brought up by the likes of Netscape and others?"
IANAL, but AFAIK, it doesn't say anything was wrong, really. They too had to prove in court that not only MS is hurting competition, but also that it hurts the consumer.
I.e., in a nutshell the gist of it is that you can't go and say "I can't compete with company X. Make them raise their prices, so I have a chance." What you have to prove is that first and foremost this has hurt the consumers (e.g., company X is in a position to shamelessly gouge its customers, or companies X and Y aggreed to fix their prices high, or it has some other effect that consumers obviously don't want) and in which way are they creating an artifficial barrier, i.e., other than for example price or brand name, that keeps others from competing.
So in that MS antitrust case, yes, they had to argue that:
A) MS's monopoly is hurting the consumers (e.g., that the cost of a MS OS has been steadily rising in the same time interval where the cost of the computer itself has been steadily dropping. And since at the time it was just short of impossible to buy a computer without Windows, that was an ever-increasing burden upon consumers as a whole.) and
B) that there is an artifficial barrier in the way of anyone trying to compete with MS. The keyword being "anyone", not "me". As was said, those laws are to protect competition, not one or two competitors. That's why for example MS was able to use Linux as an example of "but we still have competitors in the OS arena", although it wasn't the product of Netscape and the other.
You may notice that the same applies to this lawsuit too. See the other quote in the summary, about the GPL allowing people to get programs extremely cheaply. It's not part of the same "protecting the competition" reasoning, but addressing the other (more important) point: then it hasn't hurt the consumer. Without that, you don't really have an anti-trust case.
Re:Competitors. (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft's actions were directly intended to reduce competition and choice for the consumer.
Offering Explorer as a free browser was not the problem, tying it in with Windows in the way that they did was the problem.
Re:SysCon sucks... (Score:4, Informative)
For those interested in his "information" antics (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SysCon sucks... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Who is Wallace and why did he sue? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
> However, check recent stories about Citgo giving heating oil away for reduced prices in northeast towns this past winter.
> They did it to embarass the Bush administration, but their competitors started crying that they were dumping.
Yea, and 'they' is Hugo Chavez, a sworn foreign enemy of the US. Citgo is a foreign company dude, try buying a clue somewhere other than DailyKos next time.
> We can only hope that the real facts in this case are that the plaintiff merely bollixed the proof portion of his
> claim of dumping, and not that the judge just said that dumping isn't anticompetitive.
Dumping may or may not be illegal. Which is why people who know always accuse their foe of 'illegal dumping.' Dumping is merely selling below the cost of production and can happen in a Free Marketplace for a variety of reasons, only a couple of which are deemed illegal by current laws. Just as a quickie example, half the merchandise in Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Burke's Outlet, etc. is being sold at a price lower than their original cost of production and it is legal.
Re:Who is Wallace and why did he sue? (Score:3, Informative)
It's been a while since I read about the details of his suit, but as I recall Wallace is not actually in the business of selling software and hasn't written anything that he has tried to sell. He just says that he would like to be, and that the GPL makes it impossible for him.
Re:Who is Wallace and why did he sue? (Score:3, Informative)
The GPL is not a contract, not a license. It is a copyright.
Uh? No, the GPL is not a contract, and not a copyright, it is a license from the copyright holder authorizing others to perform actions normally limited to the copyright holder, subject to certain limitations.
Re:Who is Wallace and why did he sue? (Score:1, Informative)
Actually no.
The GPL applies to distribution not usage. As an end user who is not distributing binaries or source code for the GPL'd product you are totally unaffected.
If it were ruled the way you suggest then how much more would it affect Microsoft software? MS wants the right to probe my computer and search it and basically control it. That is not compatible with any business model that requires security and privacy for their data. So by your logic Microsoft and DRM would be ruled illegal. Not to mention the right to unilaterally change the license any time a flaw is patched. Remember Microsoft doesn't negotiate custom licenses with other businesses and they are the only source for their software.
Re:Judge, not only made correct decision, but gets (Score:4, Informative)
It was reported on groklaw, that Wallace made the tactical mistake to attach a copy of the GPL to his claims. Why was that a mistake? At the very first stage of a court case, the judge must only decide whether a valid claim was made. He is not allowed to look at any evidence, that comes later. So normally, the judge would not have looked at the GPL or wouldn't even have been allowed to look at it, and without looking at it, it _might_ be possible that the GPL forces anti-competitive behavior. But since the GPL was attached to the claims and therefore part of the claims, the judge was not only allowed to, but required to read it and to decide whether it is anti-competitive. And I think the contents of the GPL is absolutely crystal clear to any judge. It is a purely legal paper and very easy to understand for any lawyer or judge.
Also, Wallace has mixed up everyday language and legal language quite badly. If A has a Formula I car, and B has a bicycle, and they decide to race each other, B might say "I cannot compete, because A has a Formula I car and I only have a bicycle". In the legal language, B is wrong. He can compete. He loses badly every time they race, and he has not the slightest chance to win, but there is nothing stopping him from competing. Or if you sell a widget for $100 each, and I figure out that it costs me $110 alone to produce it, I might claim that I cannot compete. In legal language, I can compete by selling my widgets for $150. Nobody will buy them, and I will go bankrupt doing it, but nothing stops me from competing. (Better ways of competing would be to find a way to build the widget for $50, or painting it in fashionable colors so people buy it at the higher price etc.)
Re:Who is Wallace and why did he sue? (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. A judge would take a very dim view if you sue me for distributing your software after you have given me explicit permission to do so. You might have some legal grounds to quibble over trivialities, but for all practical matters the software would still be Free Software.
I think you are missing the chain here...
The key clause being "if some parts are made invalid." If you cannot comply with the GPL due to some legal ruling saying the GPL license is not valid, you no longer have any permsission to make copies of the software.
Now it is unlikely you could be sued for your prior use of the software, as you had a reasonable expectation that what you were doing was with the permission of the copyright holder because you were obeying the license the copyright holder put on the software. But, if that license is made invalid everything reverts to copyrght law and you no longer have any license giving you permission to use or distribute some one else's copyrighted work aka the software. So, any subsequent distribution would be subject to copyright law and without a new license, illegal.
This is where people knowledgeable about the GPL and copyright law laugh at those who want to invalidate it thinking that it makes the software public domain. If the license is invalid there is no license which means the copyright holder retains all rights and no one has permission to distribute the software anymore. There is no law or legal precedent that automatically makes a copyrighted work public domain other than expiration of the copyright term. If there were there would not be the problem of so many orphaned copyrighted works that cannot be archived or rescued because the copyright holder cannot be identified.
In a lower post you say if you pay money for a license you are allowed to use the software. But, we can show the same effect there as well. Click wrap licenses are a good example since they have had portions ruled invalid or unenforceable before. The key is that the copyright holder did have a choice they could have revoked the license and you would no longer have permission to use the software, but more typically they just let you continue using the software under the same license minus the invalidated clause, or more analagous to the GPL issue under a new license that is the same as the original minus the invalidated clause. If they did revoke the license because of the invalidated clause, I suspect you could reasonably sue for a refund of your license fee, and they could not sue you for prior use because you reasonably thought you had a license. In the end there is nothing in it for the copyright holder of paid software to revoke licenses when some egregious license term that they really had no intention of ever enforcing gets invalidated.