Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
"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.
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. :-)
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.
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