GPL Price-Fixing Lawsuit Dismissed

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.'"

Comments

Re:How much do "court costs" usually run?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends, most expensive I've seen was about a million, though the cheapest you can get is merely a photograph of a slightly compromising position. Depends on the judge really.

Re:I love irony

[Snorpus]

More or less: pro se = "for yourself".

Re:How much do "court costs" usually run?

[networkBoy]

Depends on the length of the trial.
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...

['nother poster]

No worry mate. Grommit will simply build him another rocket so he can go to the moon for all of that free cheese. This time they'll take a cheese grater so that they can make "snow".

Re:I love irony

[slavemowgli]

"pro se" means "for himself" - in other words, he's arguing for himself, rather than having a lawyer argue for him.

Re:I love irony

[Milalwi]

I didn't know what the term pro se in TFA meant...

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

* 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

* Acting without the aid of an attorney; representing yourself.
http://www.oah.wa.gov/Glossary.htm

* Representing oneself. Serving as one's own lawyer.
http://www.uscourts.gov/journalistguide/glossary.h tml

* 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

* 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

* 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

* 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

* 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

* 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

* 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

* Without the benefit of counsel; the act of speaking or representing oneself in a court of law.
http://www.alqlist.com/glossary.html

* A debtor who is not represent

Re:the system

[AlterTick]

Parenthetically, double jeopardy only applies when a mistrial is declared at which point the prosecution may or may not try to try again.

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

[Beowabbit]

No, it means "for himself, herself, itself, or oneself. In Latin, the reflexive pronoun "se" does not vary for gender, so it's every bit as accurate to translate it as "for herself" as "for himself". Completely off-topic, but the language geek in me couldnt let it go. :-)

Re:WallaceOS

[schon]

What was the WallaceOS

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

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

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 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.

Only cost that matters....

[MarkGriz]

[T]he GPL encourages, rather than discourages, free competition and the distribution of computer operating systems, the benefits of which directly pass to consumers. These benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation

Having your case dismissed while simultaneously strengthening the GPL.... priceless.

Re:How much do "court costs" usually run?

[Ibix]

Courtesy of a post on Groklaw, court costs don't include attorney fees (although they can be imposed, too). Another post in the Groklaw thread suggested a figure of about $2k (for the FSF's costs...), but PJ said 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?

[friedo]

People aren't found guilty in civil cases, nor do they go to prison if they lose.

Re:the system

[UnrefinedLayman]

Umm no. You can appeal your conviction in the US system, but the prosecution can not appeal an aquittal. So you can have a "second prosecution" after conviction.

You don't seem to understand what an appeal is. There has to be grounds for an appeal, and when in appellate court there is no second trial. There is no jury. There is no prosecution. Guilt has been decided and the convicted must appeal that decision by proving the trial was unfair in some manner, or by showing that it was impossible for the convicted person to have committed the crime. Often times even this isn't possible--new evidence generally cannot be introduced into an appeal as the appeal is only related to the original trial.

I guess it's a difference of opinion, in the US the idea is that "If one court can find a shred of reasonable doubt, there is", in Europe it is "The higher the court, the higher the competence and the higher the accuracy."

In the US it's not about reasonable doubt in the appeals process. It's a matter of whether the trial was conducted properly and fairly. The vast majority of appeals fail because appellate courts generally defer to the trial judge's judgement.

Let me take a simple example[...]

If by "simple example" you mean "random and meaningless numbers," go ahead and take it.

Personally I think the US lets you off way too cheaply if you're guilty and manage to sucker the court somehow. Pull it off once and you're home free.

Once again you misunderstand the US justice system. There is no suckering the court--either there was misconduct in the trial or there wasn't, and if there was you don't get a free pass. You don't get to go home. You get retried for the same crime after the verdict is set aside. Appellate courts aren't there to decide guilt or innocence, they're there to decide if a person received a fair trial and if they didn't to make sure they do.

Re:I love irony

[h4rr4r]

The point I was making is I am an idiot sometimes. Actually it is just that recently i have seen alot bad translation from latin to english for the sake of PCness and this time I jumped the gun. This means do not post on ./ while busy at work.

Re:Reading comprehension, man.

[mdfst13]

"First, the GPL sets a maximum price."

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.