rawhide report: 20041106 changes

Jeff Spaleta jspaleta at gmail.com
Mon Nov 8 19:02:35 UTC 2004


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 becuase 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




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