🚀 go-pugleaf

On 05 Apr 2000 18:12:14 +0100, Tim Haynes <piglet@glutinous.custard.org> wrote:
>David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
>
>> Tim Haynes <piglet@glutinous.custard.org> wrote:
>> >But who is there to fight for the open-source model when its licenses
>> >are violated?
>> 
>> Let us imagine that there is some GPLed code in Windoze. That would
>> require all of Windoze to be made available under the GPL, which would be
>> very amusing for IBM, Sun, Corel, DEC/Compaq, Apple, the FSF,
>> AOL/Netscape/Time Warner/Genom Corporation, etc. I suspect there would be
>> no shortage of lawyer money to fight that one with...
>
>Cool idea :)
>
>(Would all those companies' lawyers be remotely interested in a mere
>license violation when the money involved is nil, and how would many folks
>go about bringing a case to court anyway? (More to the point, as long as
>it's possible I can sleep easy :) )

I think they would. Sun paid large amounts of money for StarOffice, 
mostly to annoy/discomfort MS.

AOL also has huge interests in making sure MS doesn't get overdominant,
as then MS could ruin AOL's business. Ditto Apple and Corel. IBM less
so, but I bet a few IBM'ers would like revenge for how MS shafted
them with Windows over OS/2.

The FSF would of course be interested.

I'm sure thousands of programmers and other computer users would be willing
to donate to help a court case.

-- 
***** Phil Hunt ***** send email to phil@comuno.com *****
Moore's Law: hardware speed doubles every 18 months
Gates' Law: software speed halves every 18 months