Re: "GPL requirement could have a chilling effect on derivative distros"

[Alexander Terekhov]

David Kastrup wrote:
[...]
> Your GPL theories, of course.  The very few cases where people indeed
> go before court in relation to the GPL (instead of settling) end up in
> ways where you all bristle about how the judges must have been drunk.

Uh. Thus far, no court had a chance to address the GPL construction and
validity of its various interpretations. Wallace is currently asking the 
court to review the legality of the GPL (in its pretty reasonable OSI-
like interpretation) from antitrust->copyright misuse->copyright-
impotence (penalty) angle, preemption aside for a moment. The case is 
in the Circuit Court now (albeit in its initial stage), so please be 
patient.

> 
> Whether it be Wallace, 

Ah that. Well, I stand by what I said.

http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/msg/7ab43aa13adef34b

There's no rational explanation for those conflicting and absurd 
conclusions Judge Young and Judge Tinder had arrived at.

>                         SCO 

I'm anti-SCO (except that I enjoy their GPL trolling, so to speak).

>                             (who had most of their infringement claims
> just thrown out of court, 

That's not what happened. SCO was not allowed to bring some allegedly
infringing materials to the table, so to speak. Due to inadequate 
"specificity" (the standard was established earlier in the case), "at 
such a late stage in this litigation". This may actually prevent 
conclusive res judicata resolution of IBM's no-infringment-of-
(purported)-SCO-copyright-in-our-use-of-Linux-at-all CC10 (Declaratory 
Judgment of Noninfringement of Copyrights), and SCO may well try to
bring this copyright related stuff in RedHat's and/or Autozone actions 
(currently on stay). 

regards,
alexander.