Re: Attorney fees

[Hyman Rosen]

rjack wrote:
> STOP attempting to shift the burden of proof for YOUR claims.

What claims? I'm not making claims, you are.

> It's up to YOU to demonstrate a causal link between an SFLC suit and 
> source code being published.

No, it's not. It's you and Terkhov who claim that the SFLC is
ineffective, unethical, whatever. To demonstrate that, I invite
you to show me an instance where the SFLC dropped a case (or
lost a case) and then the source code for the GPL-licensed
software in question remained unavailable. If you can't find
such a case, why should I believe you when you say their tactics
are ineffective?

> Even blogs promoting open source are questioning the SFLC tactics.

Oh my god! How could I have been so wrong! I didn't know that
there was a *blog* questioning things!

> Even a voluntary settlement agreement will not demonstrate the
> *legal* validity of the GPL. Many firms using open source wish
> to avoid expensive litigation and have a strong financial
> incentive for promoting open source cooperation and settlement.

Um, duh? That's the point of free software! The point of GPL
enforcement activity is so that no one gets to free-ride on
the software without obeying its licensing terms. Generally,
the people upon whom enforcement is required are more lazy
than evil. They're grabbers - they see some software they can
use and go ahead and use it without obeying its license, and
they just ignore warnings to the contrary. Once a suit is filed
they realize that ignoring warnings won't just make them go
away, and then they come into compliance and the suit is dropped.

> SFLC promoters wish too claim that the GPL is *legally* enforceable  -- 
> nothing short of a court ruling will provide the *legal* answer.

Or many court rulings, for that matter. We have an answer in
Germany - the GPL is legal and enforceable there.

> So why duck an opportunity for a court ruling time and time again
> with voluntary dismissals?

Courts do not involve themselves in cases where the parties have
settled amongst themselves. Trials are adversarial processes. The
parties cannot come to court and declare that they are in agreement
but want to have the trial anyway just to see what happens!