GPL Price-Fixing Lawsuit Dismissed 154
ansak writes "The case of Wallace vs. the Free Software Foundation has been dismissed. It wasn't entirely on the merits of the case. From PJ's analysis, 'despite the judge clearly telling him where his previous complaint was lacking, he didn't fix it.... In this case, he had five tries.' Nevertheless, the judge did make a strong statement that the GPL 'encourages, rather than discourages, free competition' and ordered Wallace to pay court costs: 'Judges do that when they'd like you to learn a good lesson. It's a signal you shouldn't have brought the case in the first place.'"
Re:How much do "court costs" usually run? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I love irony (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How much do "court costs" usually run? (Score:3, Informative)
Since I pled guilty and my trial (traffic) lasted ~10 min and my court costs were $340 or so here are some assumptions:
$340 total traffic court costs (the fine was an additional $600 BTW)
-$100 filing fee
-$100 bogus crap not charged per hour
=$140/hr for court costs.
Figure if he had 5 tries as TFS said to get it right and each try was half a day of mucking about in the courtroom:
20hrs * 140 = $2800 (+ the filing fees and such).
Since I'm talking out my ass on this one I'm going to figure I'm way off.
-nB
Re:Poor Wallace... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I love irony (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I love irony (Score:2, Informative)
I know you're trying to be funny, but Google is your friend:
Query:
define:pro se
Definitions of pro se on the Web:
* A person who does not hire a lawyer and appears for himself/herself in court.
http://clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/glossary.asp [maricopa.gov]
* To act on one's own behalf; appearing for oneself; representing oneself; to represent oneself in a court action without an attorney.
http://www.courts.mo.gov/osca/index.nsf/0/8b69295b 674dde2186256e15004ea27f [mo.gov]
* Acting without the aid of an attorney; representing yourself.
http://www.oah.wa.gov/Glossary.htm [wa.gov]
* Representing oneself. Serving as one's own lawyer.
http://www.uscourts.gov/journalistguide/glossary.h tml [uscourts.gov]
* When the defendant is not represented by counsel, as he or she has waived the right to counsel in a criminal proceeding, or is otherwise not represented in a civil proceeding.
http://mova.missouri.org/cjterms.htm [missouri.org]
* A person who does not have an attorney to represent him or her and who appears on his or her own behalf before the Court.
http://www.gaappeals.us/cguide/glossary.php [gaappeals.us]
* Latin phrase ("in one's own behalf") applied to defendants who waive the right to counsel and act as their own lawyers in criminal cases.
http://www.mad.uscourts.gov/LocPubs/crimglossary.h tm [uscourts.gov]
* A Latin phrase that means "for himself." A person who represents himself in a legal matter alone without the help of a lawyer is said to appear pro se.
http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/glossary.aspx [futures.org]
* A person appearing without representation by an attorney for himself; in his own behalf; in person.
http://www.nysb.uscourts.gov/prose_man/glossary.ht ml [uscourts.gov]
* When a person who chooses to act as his or her own attorney in a legal action.
https://www.co-childsupport.com/elpaso/glossary/gl ossary.htm [co-childsupport.com]
* When a party is not represented by a lawyer but is representing himself.
http://www.courts.state.mn.us/districts/fourth/Gen eral/LegalTerms6.htm [state.mn.us]
* Without the benefit of counsel; the act of speaking or representing oneself in a court of law.
http://www.alqlist.com/glossary.html [alqlist.com]
* A debtor who is not represent
Re:the system (Score:4, Informative)
No, "double jeopardy" is when one is subjected to a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal or conviction (which is generally unconstitutional). A mistrial ends the trial before an acquittal or conviction, so a retrial after a mistrial is not double jeopardy, it's just a retrial.
Re:I love irony (Score:5, Informative)
Re:WallaceOS (Score:5, Informative)
It was basically FreeBSD with all of the non-BSD licensed software removed, and no source.
So no X, no gcc, etc.
No, I'm not kidding.
yes, this is the important thing (Score:3, Informative)
Before this case, the GPL was taken to court twice, and it was upheld twice. Something about MySQL in the USA, and another case in Germany.
One of the goals of the GPLv3 consultation process [fsf.org] is to identify enforcement issues in all the legal regions of the world. Yet another win in court doesn't give us anything to fix, but it's good to know that Stallman's written a solid licence - GPLv3 should be GPLv2 but better [www.ifso.ie].
Only cost that matters.... (Score:3, Informative)
Having your case dismissed while simultaneously strengthening the GPL.... priceless.
Re:How much do "court costs" usually run? (Score:4, Informative)
Courtesy of a post [groklaw.net] on Groklaw, court costs [law.com] don't include attorney fees (although they can be imposed, too). Another post [groklaw.net] in the Groklaw thread suggested a figure of about $2k (for the FSF's costs...), but PJ said [groklaw.net] probably lower. I understand Wallace has similar cases pending against RedHat, Novell, and IBM. He probably has similar chances of success. It's going to add up if he pushes...
I
Re:How much do "court costs" usually run? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:the system (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I love irony (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Reading comprehension, man. (Score:3, Informative)
No it doesn't. I could offer to sell a copy of Fedora for a billion dollars if I wanted. Nothing the copyright holder(s) could do about it under the GPL, even if I found someone stupid enough to pay me. Even if I don't modify it at all.
You may be thinking of the source code clause, which says that once I have distributed the binary, I must offer the source code for no more than a reasonable cost of delivery of media. However, that clause doesn't affect binary cost at all. I could still sell the binary for a billion dollars; it's just that once I've sold the binary, I'd have to sell the source code for something more like $2. Of course, if I just ship the source *with* the binary (or deliver just the source), that clause goes out the window.