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Re: The great BusyBox fraud continues


From: RJack
Subject: Re: The great BusyBox fraud continues
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:56:43 -0000
User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.24 (Windows/20100228)

Hyman Rosen wrote:
On 6/24/2010 6:44 PM, RJack wrote:
The only GPL'd code at issue is "BusyBox, v.0.60.3" registered

No, that's incorrect. In order to copy and distribute a GPLed version
of BusyBox, the source code for the exact version being distributed must be made properly available according to the terms of the GPL. The version you mention is one registered by Erik Andersen, but it is
 not the version being distributed by the defendants.

*Allegedly* distributed Hyman. *Allegedly." Where's the beef?

It is possible, should the defendants not settle, that they will assert that registration of a different version prevents suit on the version they are distributing, and then the court would decide that matter. The plaintiffs can register other versions and refile the suit, should that be necessary.

The plaintiff(s) don't own *any* version of Busybox "a single computer
program". One of the plaintiff(s) owns no copyrights at all. The
plaintiff Erik Andersen will never successfully get *any* version of
Busybox registered since he doesn't own *any8 version.

Busybox is a snarled, tangled combination of patches and derivative
source modules that defies categorization. No one will *ever*
successfully register "Busybox a single computer program" because the
original authorship of the code is impossible to untangle. More than
fifty authors have contributed patches to Busybox over the course of
ten years -- that's literally millions of bifurcations in a supposed
derivative work.

You can spin but you can't win.

Sincerely,
RJack :)



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