rawhide report: 20041106 changes

[Otto Haliburton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: fedora-devel-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:fedora-devel-list-
> bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Spaleta
> Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 1:03 PM
> To: Development discussions related to Fedora Core
> Subject: Re: rawhide report: 20041106 changes
> 
> On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 16:31:16 -0200, Casimiro de Almeida Barreto
> <casimiro_barreto at uol.com.br> wrote:
> > - you have to fight
> > with the fact that the lawyers at RH are GPL zealotes and this is
> anoying...
> 
> You fail to comprehend the position Red Hat is in as a US software
> company, competing with other technology companies in a legal system
> that encourages costly litigation or cross-licensing over patent
> rights instead of proactive arbitration to prevent problems. Would it
> be less annoying to you if Red Hat was sued and was forced into a
> costly legal battle because they decided to disregard the legal advice
> of their legal team and knowingly included patent encumbered software?
> How does the community win in this case? Who wins if Red Hat can no
> longer support their developers because they are paying legal fees or
> damages due to patent infringement?
> 
> The situation is absolutely annoying...but don't blame the victim.
> Legal issues are calculated risks, and no one outside of Red Hat can
> calculate the litigation risks that Red Hat faces as a business. If
> this is a problem for you and you are unable to accept this fact,
> please use another distribution.
> 
> -jef

here is my .02c.  The litigation is not the problem.  A software company or
any company should strive to do the right thing.  Don't implement things
that are known to be faulty without properly notifying the public that this
is faulty.  For example General Motors put a vehicle on the roads that they
knew would catch fire because of the design of the gas tanks.  Instead of
notifying the public they were faulty, it made a considered decision that it
would be cheaper to go through the litigation process than to do the
responsible thing and inform the public "we released a faulty vehicle".
Hopefully, RH will always do the right thing and notify the public of the
faults that are present in it's release and also respect the patent rights
of another company/individual.  And not take the position that it is cheaper
to litigate the matter.