[Asterisk-Dev] code theft again?

[Steven]

On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 09:20 +0300, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 13, 2005 at 12:12:19AM -0500, Steven wrote:
> > On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 19:02 -0500, Kevin P. Fleming wrote:
> > > Tilghman Lesher wrote:
> > > 
> > > > But since we have granted Digium a license to relicense the code to
> > > > other parties, under other licenses, we need Digium to provide notice
> > > > that they have not granted such a license before we can reasonably
> > > > take action to enforce our rights under the GPL.
> > > 
> > > Agreed, I'm not disputing that. I don't think that information would be 
> > > publicly available, though, so you'd have to contact the product 
> > > licensing manager directly to be involved.
> > 
> > I think we should use our community to the benefit of enforcement by
> > being kept in the loop about infringers not playing nicely. 
> 
> OTOH, taking everything public forces the other party into a "defending"
> position and prevents useful negotioation with them.

Note that I tried to qualify with "not playing nicely" up there. 

> > It would be
> > very easy for a large number of us to file suit in our jurisdiction
> > simultaneously. Even if we didn't prosecute hard, the cost of defending
> > a 30-50 lawsuits in 20 or more jurisdictions would bankrupt a smallish
> > business, or at least force them to come clean quickly.
> 
> Call me naive, but I'd mainly like to see companies copmplying with the
> license (and contributing their changes back to the community). Law
> suits are just one way of forcing them to do so. They should be used as
> a last resort *after* the company has been contacted and has been made
> aware of the fact that complying with the license isn't normaly that
> difficult.

Consider me in agreement with the part about companies complying, but
I'm also of the opinion that like other copyright infringers, if you
don't make non compliance hurt you won't get people to comply. 

> I know that there is a certain country where "sue as much as you can"
> has become a national sport. But do try to avoid it when it's not
> necessary. Law suits generally also mean taking money from the two
> parties and paying it to the laweyers with the suits.

While I wouldn't like to resort to suing people, it is a good way of
getting their attention. I also wouldn't suggest getting lawyers. The
mere cost of appearing to defend the mass of lawsuits is the pain to
help enforcement.

The basic idea is to publicly make it known that we are searching out
infringers and that we are interested in them coming into compliance or
else we will use our legal rights to make it hurt.  

-- 
Steven Critchfield
critch at basesys.com
KI4KTY