Unconstitutional...

In bulk reply:

1) There are two things here: Copyright and License. Bruce created a work. He holds copyright. He published that worked under a license. That license is the GPL. I had privilege to use, modify, and redistribute that work according to the license. The license requires that I respect Bruce's copyright and redistribute derivatives under that same license. I own copyright to the parts I have authored. This goes so forth and so on for each person. IMO the original author never loses copyright claim. Without question the original author remains the primary license grantor.

2) Violating the GPL means violating the terms of the license. According to the GPL if you violate these terms, you loose your privilege the work completely .

3) Before meaninglessly rambling actually read the GPL.

4) Before meaninglessly rambling actually read the courts documents. Anderson claims complete copyright here.

5) I would argue that from my knowledge Anderson did not hold the copyright for many of the code contributions he made into busybox (his employer did) and further more as Anderson is not respecting the terms of the original copyright and license term of the original author (Bruce) and authors before him (Me) he is in violation of Section 1 GPLv2, and has lost his his privileges to the software according to Section 4 GPLv2. In this case Anderson lacks standing to bring suit and he himself is open to an action.

6) One must wonder why the SFLC is working with Anderson when they have been aware that both Bruce and myself have more senior claims to the original work without the 'issues' Anderson has. As Bruce has written we've basically been snubbed by them.

7) I feel I speak for Bruce here in saying the most important issue for us is to have our interests be respected and to be a party to any terms of how the license is enforced. I would be content if it was ultimately left to Bruce because he is original author and respect that. I personally never made a penny from BusyBox unlike Anderson who's full time job paid him to work on BusyBox (and other work I created). When I start to read about 'undisclosed settlement amounts' and considering the full picture, it leaves a very bad taste not knowing exactly what is taking place here. I'm not allowed to know. Bruce is not allowed to know. That's not acceptable.

Anyone who has contributed to a piece of GPL software, reserves their copyright, and does not violate the GPL license has rights to defend their own copyright in the work. The issue you may be missing is this is not clearly the situation with Anderson for several reasons.

I am the one that handed BusyBox over to Anderson after maintaining it for 2 years.

I believe I worked with Busybox longer then Bruce did and during my time I reorganized the code, but still consider Bruce the primary root Copyright holder and license grantor. Anderson is claiming complete Copyright and that is simply an impossibility. As far as I am concerned, this claim is a GPL violation in and of itself.

Even if every line of code Bruce or myself wrote were replaced, it was done so on his and subsequently my license terms which are the GPL. My privileges and Anderson's privileges (if any ?) to alter and redistribute Bruce's work are based on those license terms derived from Bruce's initial publication and you can not simply 'code them away' unless you start from scratch.

States can not place a tax on sales originating outside of the state. Period. (US Federal Commerce Cause) Decided for over 30 years by the US Supreme Court.

How states get around this is to classify it as a 'Use tax'. However they lack jurisdiction to force an out of state person/entity to collect this tax. Instead the tax is due from the state resident, and of course rarely gets paid.

I've been quite pissed at Amazon over their 'One Click' patent and refused to deal with them. This is somewhat redeeming of them to fight this.

The last few years we've had a new breed of corporate fascists (Like Dell and HP to name only a few) that register in a state and collect sales/use tax, even though they have no presence there.

I have been fighting this myself as the business has NO, NONE, ZERO, ZIP legal basis to collect a tax for one state while it IS NOT IN that state. It is like a NY state cop going into NJ. Once they cross that line, no jurisdiction, no authority. They can not enforce NY law in NJ...even if they are cop in NJ!! Same with a retailer collecting tax.

Below is the 'Tax Exempt' certificate that I have been using with various success. HP refunded $150 'sales tax' on the laptop I ordered based on this.

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INTERSTATE SALES TAX EXEMPTION CERTIFICATION

This Purchaser claims rights under the U.S. Federal commerce clause for exemption from collection of State sales tax by a foreign entity Seller.

This exemption is authorized by NATIONAL BELLAS HESS, INC. v. DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE OF STATE OF, 386 U.S. 753 (1967) and reaffirmed by Quill Corp. v. North Dakota (91-0194), 504 U.S. 298 (1992).

The Purchaser hereby certifies that they are located outside the State of domicile of the Seller. The Seller is notified that they lack standing and jurisdiction to act as an agent for a foreign State. The Seller is ordered to cease collection of any State sales tax and refund any State sales tax previously collected.

Name and address of Purchaser:
XXXXX

Name and address of Seller:
XXXXX