Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar

[Rjack]

amicus_curious wrote:
> What irks me is that the victims of the SDLC are the little 
> companies that use Linux the way that it was intended to be used 
> and do not have the resources to waste on defending their 
> otherwise clean conduct.  So they are pounced upon by the 
> FSF/SDLC and made to pay homage to the cause along with being 
> mugged for a few bucks to keep the muggers mugging.  At the end 
> of the day, the victims are a little poorer, FOSS is no better 
> off, and the world is not changed one whit.  The people who use 
> the FOSS products in commerce are paying the price rather than 
> being encouraged to do more.  That is why Linux is a flop.

You are correct in your assessment of some of the results of the
SFLC's frivolous suits. I was concerned with the detrimental effects
of these suits on *real* open source projects under MIT, BSD and
other valid "non-recursive" open source licenses (contracts that are
legally enforcable under U.S. copyright law). I have had to
re-evaluate my estimate of the detriment caused by these frivolous
suits.

I have Google automatic alerts set for tracking various elements of
software licensing. What I see is an increasingly negative reaction
to the SFLC tactics and growing support for projects that are
developed under truly "free" open source licenses that do not
attempt to control other people's contributions to projects.

The old adage "there's a little bit of good in everything" seems to
be true concerning the SFLC's frivolous and obnoxious lawsuits.
Contributions to non-GPL projects are definitely on the uptick.

Sincerely,
Rjack :)