Re: Artifex v. Diebold: "The GPL is non-commercial!"

[David Kastrup]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

> amicus_curious wrote:
>> a more expansive view would say that the copyright holders
>> were forced to abandon their suit after reading the handwriting
>> on the wall.
>
> And what evidence do you have for this claim? The evidence
> for my claim is that the actual manufacturer makes the source
> available, and the Verizon link contains "actiontec gateway".
> Aside from wishful thinking, what proof do you have that the
> SFLC was "forced to abandon their suit"?

Well, they were not able to uphold their original claim because Verizon
dragged their feet answering to the requests of the SFLC, so it took up
unto fact discovery till it was clear that the suit was the wrong one,
due to Verizon's unresponsiveness.  So yes, the SFLC was forced to
abandon their suit, and could have replaced it with two different ones,
one for damages to Verizon (which they did not need since Verizon
settled and reimbursed them for their trouble) and one with Actiontec
(which they did not need since Actiontec made the source available).

This is all not so very spectacular.  The SFLC is now barred from suing
Verizon again for something which they did not do, but failed to say so
until brought before court.  So what?  That has so absolutely nothing to
do with the GPL that it is not even boring.

-- 
David Kastrup