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GPL Price-Fixing Lawsuit Dismissed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the mostly-without-merit dept.

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.'"

6 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I love irony by Snorpus · · Score: 3, Informative
    More or less: pro se = "for yourself".

  2. Re:I love irony by slavemowgli · · Score: 4, Informative

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

    --
    quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
  3. Re:the system by AlterTick · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.

    --
    Conclusion: the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Accept it.
  4. Re:I love irony by Beowabbit · · Score: 4, Informative

    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. :-)

  5. Re:WallaceOS by schon · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:How much do "court costs" usually run? by Ibix · · Score: 4, Informative

    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