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Re: Microsoft needs a help strategy


From: ZnU
Subject: Re: Microsoft needs a help strategy
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:34:58 -0500
User-agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b2 (Intel Mac OS X)

In article <slrngo6d5m.grc.jedi@nomad.mishnet>,
 JEDIDIAH <jedi@nomad.mishnet> wrote:

> On 2009-01-30, ZnU <znu@fake.invalid> wrote:
> > In article <85bptp20ty.fsf@lola.goethe.zz>, David Kastrup 
> > <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> >
> >> ZnU <znu@fake.invalid> writes:

> > My entire point is that there's essentially no case law on this 
> > issue. What you're presenting in this post is your opinion, not 
> > established legal fact.
> 
>     Sure there is. This is like Lemming arguments that Microsoft 
>     isn't
> a monopoly because it doesn't meet their own naieve definition. They 
> choose to argue the situation simplemindedly.
>   
> While the GPL itself hasn't been adjudicated on, the principles upon 
> which it is based have been. 

Many people here seem to want to treat the law like deterministic 
computer software. It's not. Details and context matter. General 
principles only get you probability, not certainty.

> NO ONE with a stake in the situation wants ownership rights in GPL 
> software to be vacated. That would have far reaching implications 
> that the relevant vested interests don't even want to contemplate.

Sure. Most commercial software vendors have absolutely no interest in 
undermining the notion that copyright holders can impose basically 
whatever terms they like. This doesn't mean the GPL will *never* be 
challenged, though.

[snip]

-- 
"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them
‹ that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer
apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too
small, but whether it works [...]"        -- Barack Obama, January 20th, 2008


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