Re: Attorney fees

[Hyman Rosen]

rjack wrote:
> Regardless of the legal reasons for contract failure, the donated 
> copyright permissions will be enforced by the courts.

In your dreams, perhaps. Do you know of any instance where after a
case was brought on the basis of the GPL, that the source was not
made available afterwards? Do you know that a court in Germany has
decided in favor of the GPL in the way we always say?

>    "A promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to
>     induce action or forbearance on the part of the promisee
>     or a third person and which does induce such action or
>     forbearance is binding if injustice can be avoided only
>     by enforcement of the promise."

Exactly. Someone receiving a distribution of GPL-licensed code
reasonably expects that he has been promised the sources as well.
He may start using the software in expectation of being able to
fix or change it as needed, and the only way to repair injustice
when the distributor refuses to honor his promise is to compel
him to do so.