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Wallace's Second Anti-GPL Suit Loses
Enterprise OpenSource Magazine is reporting that Daniel Wallace's second Anti-GPL lawsuit has gone down in flames. From the (short) article: "The judge wrote that 'Antitrust laws are for 'the protection of competition, not competitors.' In this case, the GPL benefits consumers by allowing for the distribution of software at no cost, other than the cost of the media on which the software is distributed. 'When the plaintiff is a poor champion of consumers, a court must be especially careful not to grant relief that may undercut the proper function of antitrust.' Because he has not identified an anticompetitive effect, Wallace has failed to allege a cognizable antitrust injury.'"
Judges stand up for consumer shocker.
Read all about it!
If you're interested then have at these instead:
n tiff)2 01540127
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wallace_(plai
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060320
He has had no luck with anything since he broke up with Grommit.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
"If you can't find a lawyer willing to represent you, it usually means you don't have a case."
That may be true for this case, but more often than not it means you can't afford the lawyer's fees whether you've got a case or not. Justice and the legal process are things that are for sale in the United States these days. If you've got a small business there are any number of silly lawsuits your enemies can bring against you that will bleed you dry in legal fees alone. And that's for DEFENDING yourself against a bogus complaint, never mind prosecuting a case where you know you're in the right.
this suit was manifestly stupid. What he was claiming was that because someone is cheeper they are damaging the market. Is this not exactly the same as all companies - they are as cheep as they can afford to be in order to gain business from other companies? did he want to stop that - because it would have. Further, if the case went through and won it would mean that nothing could be given away for free, and possibly that the internet is illegal because it takes away from the market for books on the subject.
If this had won it would have literally killed the economy and taken it back to the dark-ages.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
What surprises me is not that Wallace was laughed out of court. That was almost certain for various reasons. What did surprise me is that the judge's comments showed that he really understood the GPL and its role in ensuring a competitive marketplace.
It must have chaffed MOG's hyde to print this news. I do have to give her points for writing the facts of the case for once instead of anti-IBM FUD.
As for Wallace, he is a fucking crackpot and now everyone in the IT industry knows it.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I'm just curious-- who is this Daniel Wallace character, and what does he have to do with the GPL? What prompted the suit? I read the Wikipedia page and there wasn't much on him other than his two suits were thrown out.
Oh cool! You're on your way to a "+5 Troll". I haven't seen one in a Looonng time!
Also, it's not "dumping" unless it's:
Coming from another country.
And, the industry that's "victimized" has a shit load of political clout - Agriculture, Auto and Steel as examples.
I read your post half a dozen times or so and but I can't tell. Do you charge your loved one for making her happy? (I know, I know, I'm making a few assumptions here.)
SysCon really sucks.
They said they wouldn't print any more Maurene O'Gara articles after she went crazy stalking Pamela Jones and making fun of her religion. So now they're printing MoG's articles but without any attribution.
As always with MoG, the article is misleading. The judge didn't accept the facts as true. To dismiss a lawsuit the judge has to say: "If these were all true, should the case go forward?" In this case the answer is no. The "if" is important.
Anyway here is the original article where the Daniel Wallace stupidness started. The actual syscon link is offline because syscon took all MoG's stuff offline.
Daniel Wallace is a net kook. I wouldn't be surprised if he created a slashdot login to respond anonymously to this article. He always posts about how the GPL is a contract not a license. He is not a legal genius but he is funny.
Maurene O'Gara is evil. She lies constantly. I've never seen anyone who is as sick and twisted as she is. I despise her.
The Wiki article isn't too informative and I'm kind of late to the game... I mean we know he sued because he doesn't like GPL, but why doesn't he like GPL? Does he own a closed sourcesoftware buseinss that was trying to compete with Linux? Or is he a paid shill? Or did RMS insult him at a comic book convention? Maybe Linus wrote a scathing reply to his ponies request inclusion to the Linux kernel?
The Wiki and other articles is very uninformative of who this guy is and his motivations and why he would even go out of his way to this. It is like the man spontaneously came into existence just to sue.
Although people have sued other over less...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Dumping at a value less than the cost of production (if you think coders' time is free, you're not much of a coder) isn't anticompetitive?
That's right, like us "dumping" our opinions on the market instead of charging for them like professional opinion writers. Or people singing for the fun of it and letting others listen. Not to mention those evil people who don't charge for sex. They should all be in prison.
(if you think coders' time is free, you're not much of a coder)
Next thing you know, Dockers will be suing women for sewing for free. After that, the association of starving artists will be suing preschoolers for giving their parents free drawings to hang on their refrigerator.
If you think crayons and fingerpaints are free, you're not much of an artist.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
News at 11.
That would be "nothing."
The real issue in the Microsoft case was leveraging monopoly powers in a criminally coercive manner, with hints of fraud (as per the DR DOS case), not the mere bundling of the browser with the OS for "free."
Unfair competition, not the perfectly legitimate competition of offering something cheaper/free.
KFG
Dumping at a value less than the cost of production (if you think coders' time is free, you're not much of a coder) isn't anticompetitive?
Nope. The list is too long to even mention but I think you can start with:
Local theater group doing show without pay (professional actors)
Volunteers at a soup kitchen (the local cafe)
Laywers taking cases pro bono (other lawyers)
Doctors providing free medical aid (other doctors)
Any number of arts and crafts that people sell at less than real cost on fairs and the like
Every local band who can't make a living out of it but plays anyway
Every sort of artist who doesn't make a living out of it, but does it anyway
Every sort of "scratch-an-itch" programmer who doesn't make a living out of it, but does it anyway
Anti-trust requires that there has to be sort of monopolizing intent - that you want to pressure the competitors out of the market, then raise the prices afterwards. In fact, it typically has to go beyond pure pricing (e.g. Wal-Mart killing local shops, McDonalds killing local burger shop) and more on to discrimination and misuse of market power. How can you do that with the GPL? You can't, because there's noone who has that power, not even Linus himself. He couldn't turn around and say "Haha suckers! Now that Linux is the only OS in existance, I'll close it up and become the new Microsoft."
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
""From the (short) article: "The judge wrote that 'Antitrust laws are for 'the protection of competition, not competitors.'"
So what does that say about the Microsoft antitrust case brought up by the likes of Netscape and others?"
IANAL, but AFAIK, it doesn't say anything was wrong, really. They too had to prove in court that not only MS is hurting competition, but also that it hurts the consumer.
I.e., in a nutshell the gist of it is that you can't go and say "I can't compete with company X. Make them raise their prices, so I have a chance." What you have to prove is that first and foremost this has hurt the consumers (e.g., company X is in a position to shamelessly gouge its customers, or companies X and Y aggreed to fix their prices high, or it has some other effect that consumers obviously don't want) and in which way are they creating an artifficial barrier, i.e., other than for example price or brand name, that keeps others from competing.
So in that MS antitrust case, yes, they had to argue that:
A) MS's monopoly is hurting the consumers (e.g., that the cost of a MS OS has been steadily rising in the same time interval where the cost of the computer itself has been steadily dropping. And since at the time it was just short of impossible to buy a computer without Windows, that was an ever-increasing burden upon consumers as a whole.) and
B) that there is an artifficial barrier in the way of anyone trying to compete with MS. The keyword being "anyone", not "me". As was said, those laws are to protect competition, not one or two competitors. That's why for example MS was able to use Linux as an example of "but we still have competitors in the OS arena", although it wasn't the product of Netscape and the other.
You may notice that the same applies to this lawsuit too. See the other quote in the summary, about the GPL allowing people to get programs extremely cheaply. It's not part of the same "protecting the competition" reasoning, but addressing the other (more important) point: then it hasn't hurt the consumer. Without that, you don't really have an anti-trust case.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
So what does that say about the Microsoft antitrust case brought up by the likes of Netscape and others?
Microsoft's actions were directly intended to reduce competition and choice for the consumer.
Offering Explorer as a free browser was not the problem, tying it in with Windows in the way that they did was the problem.
Wallace is a Physicist who looked at the BSD licence. Basically here is what I can piece together went on in his twisted brain.
"Oooh, look, I can take this, change some strings in it so it says 'WallaceOS' and sell it as a green screen command line OS for shitloads of money per copy, distributing it under a licence so my suckers...er customers can't redistrubite it, and so I don't have to give out the source code."
"WTF... nobody's buying my really cool WallaceOS? WTF there's this thing called Linux that is soooo much better under a licence called the GPL that keeps people from doing what I'm trying to do with BSD? That's anticompetative!!! "
"I must sue the Free Software Foundation and remove this evil thing called Linux and the GPL. It doesn't seem to matter that the FSF has nothing to do with the Linux kernel... only the GNU part of the OS, but who cares.... with the GPL gone, people will buy my l33t WallaceOS for whatever money I want to charge and I'll beeeee riiiiich!!!! I just hope they never hear about FreeBSD!"
How wrong can you be, let me count the ways.
/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2 .' just before you burn the iso or pack up the tarball divided by the number of people who then receive the code?
"Dumping"
Dumping implies that the costs can be recouped later by raising prices. In the case of GPL'ed software, the GPL implies the distributor has no monopoly on the distribution so he can't raise his own prices after he 'destroys' the competition and expect the market to let him recoup the costs that way. His competitors can just keep dishing out the same GPL'ed code at the old price.
"at a value less than the cost of production"
The cost of production of someone else's GPLed software is next to nothing. The marginal cost of software distributed on the internet, even the stuff you yourself write, is next to nothing (and marginal cost, or similar measures of cost is generally the measure used for antitrust claims). At least three of the defendants in his lawsuits will happily sell their GPLed code to you for way above the cost of burning their CDs or whathaveyou.
"if you think coders' time is free, you're not much of a coder"
Danny wasn't alleging that the price of the code itself was fixed. He couldn't because the GPL explicitly says otherwise. You can charge money for writing GPLed code, and for copying or distributing the code.
The only thing you can't charge for is *permission* to use the code. How much money does it cost you to give one person permission to use the code? One measure would be the cost of typing 'cp
"This judge"
These two judges
"may have just vacated a couple of hundred trade laws..."
The judges didn't have to look at the trade laws because Danny was unable to write down exactly what damage it was that the GPL did to the software market, after about six or seven attempts in two courtrooms.
For such a small post you have managed to be completely wrong in quite a few different ways. I'm impressed. Is your name Danny Wallace by any chance?
All I could find about him in Google is that he is a physics teacher and a member of the FSF. This raises the question: did he lose on purpose? The whole thing was done so ineptly and without apparent motivation to win that one wonders if he's just trying to work some judicial precedent for the GPL.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Source for this one, please ? I'm in the Fellowship of the Free Software Foundation Europe; i can't believe the FSF set something up.
Antitrust laws are for the protection of competition, not competitors. ... When the plaintiff is a poor champion of consumers, a court must be especially careful not to grant relief that may undercut the proper function of antitrust.
Man, this judge is my hero! Winners do, whiners sue!
So say we all
loss leaders are not illegal, and not necessarily anticompetitive.
That depends on the goal of the loss-leader. If it's to induce collateral purchases and thus still gain a net profit on the gross total, then the effect is not a loss to corner a market.
But unless you're new to "Free Software" you know that the whole point is to compete with and hopefully end un-free software.
And Linus Torvalds has been employed by someone for most of his Linux-kernel-writing career. The true fact is that there is an enormous value input to the body of "free software" and as nobody is attempting to recoup that value, it's being dumped. Not disposed of, because it intends to continue production. The only real question is, who do you sue for that? The person who's giving away the copy that competes with your product. It's up to them to sue the person who gave it to them. Eventually, it gets back to the person who paid for the labor and gave the product away for free.
What's important here is that the GPL was recognized as legal and beneficial. The judge ruled the 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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You can visit the yahoo message boards and read up on most of it, plus some interesting comments on SCOX at http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mb?s=SCOX
He used to be a member of the FSF but that was
long ago.
The last few years he has been in any board he could get into trying to prove the GPL wouldn't have a chance in a court of law and, basically, being laughed at.
He probably couldn't take the laughs any more and he tried to prove he was right.
One woman sewing will not compete on the scale of Dockers.
So? How many does it take? How many grandmas have to knit little mittens for their grandchildren before baby-clothes manufacturers feel the competition? How many people must cook dinner for their families before McDonalds starts feeling the pressure? How many kids must run lemonade stands at rates far below market costs before Minute Maid goes out of business?
How many programmers must work on GPLd code before Microsoft does more than twitch?
Giving your code away for free is stealing from your own retirement.
Explain.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
That's a painful way to find out you're wrong.
I think you're missing the point. This is clearly not illegally anticompetitive. I am free to do anything I want and give it away or sell it for any price I want to set. It doesn't matter what it cost me -- if I want to lose money on the transaction, I am free to do so. No one can tell me my price is too low. If I'm "stealing from my own retirement," that's my own business.
As the judge points out, laws against price fixing are in place to protect the consumer from artificially high prices due to the absence of competition. They aren't there to ensure that competitors can make money.
Furthermore, I think you'd be hard pressed to show that it's truly anticompetitive in any sense of the word, not just legally. As the non-free OS vendors like to point out, an OS ends up costing a lot more than the price of its license. Making that license free lowers the cost, but does not make it zero. There is still business opportunity.
Don't believe me? Then just ask how there are Linux companies still in business? Yeah, they're giving away their OS license for free, but they're still generating revenue. Further, the fact that they're giving it away for free is not pricing anyone out of the market -- Windows and OSX seem to be selling just fine.
I think that you'll find most judges get the GPL. These are guys that have been lawyers for 20 years, and are generally able to understand insanely complex contracts and licenses that would twist our brains. The GPL must be a breath of fresh air to them, a license that not only doesn't even try to screw the people who accept it over, but that is the equivalent of a well-commented hundred line program. I expect that most judges are able to look at the GPL and think of things in minutes that you or I didn't see after knowing the GPL for years, and imagine how refreshing it must be to see those concepts in print and being used.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
Giving your code away for free is stealing from your own retirement.
You have no understanding of the market incentives for writing open source code. For example, if a software product costs $500 per installation, then for ten users, that is $5000 that they can save by writing their own open source equivalent. That's 50-100 hours of a good profession or 1000 or more hours of an undergraduate in college. Over thousands of users, that's a huge value returned to those users.
Second, working on such projects generates several relatively intangible benefits. It builds experience and enhances your reputation. It's also a fun activity for many programmers. So the combination of all this drives down the actual opportunity cost of programming. Ie, perhaps you can claim that someone's time (even a salaried person) is worth so many dollars an hour. Then add in all the benefits you ignore. Suddenly that cost is an overall benefit. Then that means that claims that they are producing code below cost are incorrect. The open source and free as in beer programming is several decades old. If it really were a "below cost" operation, then they would have given it up by now.
So who is right? One slashdot poster or thousands of smart programmers who understand the economics of programming and saving up for retirement?
The way this happens is inclusion of propetiary binary drivers into the kernel, or thin wrappers around binary blobs (NVIDIA, for instance, or Intel to use wireless network cards). Then we have the NDIS wrapper so that Windows drivers might be used.
This is happening today in the Linux kernel, and FreeBSD is on the same path. Why should a vendor release hardware documentation when OS developers bends over to include their binary blobs?
Besides, the newest darling Ubuntu embraces binary blobs
Maybe, but the judicial system frowns on that sort of thing. Even if a case is just a test case, the it's important that the parties really are trying to win and that there is a real controversy, not a manufactured one.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
IAmNotALawyer, but that part is somewhere on the spectrum between inaccurate, misleading, and just plain wrong.
Exact rules on Small Claims Court vary from state to state. It is uniformly true that a private citizen is not required to get a lawyer to sue there, but the exact rules on lawyers vary widely. Some states mandate that an incorporated entity must obtain a lawyer for representation when either plaintiff or defendant in small claims court. Some do not permit lawyers to represent plaintiff or defendant in court, or even to be present (excluding lawyers working pro se, or lawyers holding salaried positions with a corporate plaintiff). All, of course, permit a lawyer to advise plaintiff or defendant outside the courtroom; and some do permit representation by an attorney in court.
More important from the standpoint of this particular blithering loon, it's also universally true that small claims court judgements are limited to a relatively small amount of monetary damages (limits vary between states, but I think I heard IL at $10000 is the current largest), with no opportunity for injunctive or equity relief; and I believe in some states, receiving an affirmative judgement in small claims court renders you inelegible to seek any further relief from any other civil court. (Depending on state, merely filing in Small Claims may preclude seeking non-monetary remedies, even at appellate level.) So, if Wallace went to small claims court, the best he could get is a check for ten grand (plus filing costs), after which IBM et alia could continue on their merry way, without changing their business practices, and leaving Wallace unable to sue over the matter again.
Of course, IBM seems to resist blackmail even when it would be cheaper, just because giving in to blackmail sets a lousy precedent....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
If the intention had been to create a judical precendent for the GPL, he would have had to do better. As is, the case failed at a much too basic level. Basically the court told him, he was not in a position to sue, no less and not much more. The judge did not even have to consider the GPL itself, hence no chanceof creating a real precedent IMO. If at all, what's been ruled on, is that it's not per se illegal to give something away for free. Big deal.
We'll have to wait until somebody else dumb enough to try to disprove the GPL in court, and smart enough to actually get the formal basics right, shows up. Daniel Wallace wasn't the one.
"But unless you're new to "Free Software" you know that the whole point is to compete with and hopefully end un-free software."
I am not new to Free Software, and while that may be the aim of RMS and the GPL, (I said may, so as not to have to argue that point) that is hardly the aim of every individual Free Software program.
Now, as to the distributors, who contends that all of the linux distributors are giving their distros away for free to corner the market.? I am not sure that even makes sense...
Yay, a hundred of us distros have cornered the software market worth $0.00 in revenue. Whee. Oh wait! What? You mean we really don't have the software market cornered? What? People can get the programs we distribute direct from the actual programmers? How can that be? I thought we had the market cornered...
Gotta love it.
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/111123
Seems I am trying to corner the market in unfinished novels.
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145
And the market in instructional videos and other markets as well.
Imagine that!
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
> The fact that no American company has attempted to corner an American market through dumping in a long time is...
> However, check recent stories about Citgo giving heating oil away for reduced prices in northeast towns this past winter.
> They did it to embarass the Bush administration, but their competitors started crying that they were dumping.
Yea, and 'they' is Hugo Chavez, a sworn foreign enemy of the US. Citgo is a foreign company dude, try buying a clue somewhere other than DailyKos next time.
> We can only hope that the real facts in this case are that the plaintiff merely bollixed the proof portion of his
> claim of dumping, and not that the judge just said that dumping isn't anticompetitive.
Dumping may or may not be illegal. Which is why people who know always accuse their foe of 'illegal dumping.' Dumping is merely selling below the cost of production and can happen in a Free Marketplace for a variety of reasons, only a couple of which are deemed illegal by current laws. Just as a quickie example, half the merchandise in Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Burke's Outlet, etc. is being sold at a price lower than their original cost of production and it is legal.
Democrat delenda est
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's been a while since I read about the details of his suit, but as I recall Wallace is not actually in the business of selling software and hasn't written anything that he has tried to sell. He just says that he would like to be, and that the GPL makes it impossible for him.
I think you're wrong. Consider a "traditional" license.
I give you permission to redistribute/modify my code if you pay me X dollars.
You don't pay me X dollars.
The GPL is:
I give you permission to redistribute/modify my code, as long as any derivative works from it are GPL.
You don't do so.
It's the same thing. Why would the judge take a dim view?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
It is not illegal to sell something below cost unless you are a convicted monopoly. If what you were saying were true, gift giving would be illegal and so would loss leaders and any sales event that lowered the price of an item below cost. I suspect you are just looking to get a rise out of people. Or perhaps you are simply stupid and/or misinformed. Can you really not think of any instances of things being given away or sold below cost?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
We don't live in a democracy, we live in a republic.
One of the primary principles is the Rule of Law. That means that an informed person usually knows what side of the law they are on before trial. That is only true if judges strictly interpret the law rather than do what they personally think is right.
The Rule of Law is part of the structure, but I see it as an important aspect of our society. The alternative is the Rule of Man, and, historically, that leads to worse outcomes. A law is something anyone can see, or can at least ask a lawyer about in advance. Society is more stable and predictable that way.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
The GPL is not a contract, not a license. It is a copyright.
Uh? No, the GPL is not a contract, and not a copyright, it is a license from the copyright holder authorizing others to perform actions normally limited to the copyright holder, subject to certain limitations.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"a license that not only doesn't even try to screw the people who accept it over"
Do licenses try to screw those who accept it over? Licenses mostly screw people who violate it over.
If I accept the GPL, I can do anything I want except what isn't allowed by the license. If I do try that stuff, I get screwed.
How is the GPL any different in this way?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I am confused here. You're saying it's "low" to countersue you if you (theoretically, as is this entire discussion) get parts of the GPL invalidated.
Luckily, the GPL has a section suited directly for this legal quandary:
In effect, you'd either have to get that specific section invalidated as well (good luck), or get the entire GPL ruled unconscionable (in which case the agreement with you and all others for distribution is null and void as a whole, and you'd have to negotiate a new agreement with the copyright holder to continue to be able to distribute).
A judge simply isn't going to "substitute in" a different license if the GPL is invalidated.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Sometimes the law is ambiguous or conflicting. In that case, the judge should be as conservative as possible, by which I mean the judge should avoid any decisions that change the status quo. He should then issue in his opinion a criticism of the conflicting laws, and suggest that they be clarified.
Of course, if one law supercedes another, the greater law holds.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Our "Democratic Republic" is a republic, and not a democracy. The post I responded to suggested that democracy was the most important aspect of this country, more so than the structure of the laws. That is the antithesis of a republic.
A republic has certain important restrictions on the power of the majority. For instance, many actions require a supermajority. A democratic republic brings some of the benefits of democracy, but the restrictions are designed to prevent problems that have existed in ancient democracies. Democracy is not a new concept.
Our particular republic is unique because of the types of restrictions on the democracy, like preventing the majority from censoring the minority. "Democratic Republic" is merely the name we like to give to our particular republic because it employs some principles of democracy, like electing representatives in government, and a chance to indirectly elect the president. But clearly it rejects the overall democratic philosophy that the majority is right. The most obvious examples that our republic rejects democracy is that judges are not democratically elected, and the accused are not democratically convicted.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
'' What surprises me is not that Wallace was laughed out of court. That was almost certain for various reasons. What did surprise me is that the judge's comments showed that he really understood the GPL and its role in ensuring a competitive marketplace.''
It was reported on groklaw, that Wallace made the tactical mistake to attach a copy of the GPL to his claims. Why was that a mistake? At the very first stage of a court case, the judge must only decide whether a valid claim was made. He is not allowed to look at any evidence, that comes later. So normally, the judge would not have looked at the GPL or wouldn't even have been allowed to look at it, and without looking at it, it _might_ be possible that the GPL forces anti-competitive behavior. But since the GPL was attached to the claims and therefore part of the claims, the judge was not only allowed to, but required to read it and to decide whether it is anti-competitive. And I think the contents of the GPL is absolutely crystal clear to any judge. It is a purely legal paper and very easy to understand for any lawyer or judge.
Also, Wallace has mixed up everyday language and legal language quite badly. If A has a Formula I car, and B has a bicycle, and they decide to race each other, B might say "I cannot compete, because A has a Formula I car and I only have a bicycle". In the legal language, B is wrong. He can compete. He loses badly every time they race, and he has not the slightest chance to win, but there is nothing stopping him from competing. Or if you sell a widget for $100 each, and I figure out that it costs me $110 alone to produce it, I might claim that I cannot compete. In legal language, I can compete by selling my widgets for $150. Nobody will buy them, and I will go bankrupt doing it, but nothing stops me from competing. (Better ways of competing would be to find a way to build the widget for $50, or painting it in fashionable colors so people buy it at the higher price etc.)
Plausible, but least likely.
He had lost 2 lawsuits already and has been ordered to pay costs on at least one.
The average lawsuit costs in the US this will bankrupt a maker of WallaceOS right away so he has to have some bigger sponsorship to be still alive.
Who is paying this guy's costs?
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
But the great thing about it is, if some parts are invalidated, the situation just reverts back to plain copyright law and whoever was breaking the GPL has even less permission than they did before.
Nope. A judge would take a very dim view if you sue me for distributing your software after you have given me explicit permission to do so. You might have some legal grounds to quibble over trivialities, but for all practical matters the software would still be Free Software.
I think you are missing the chain here...
The key clause being "if some parts are made invalid." If you cannot comply with the GPL due to some legal ruling saying the GPL license is not valid, you no longer have any permsission to make copies of the software.
Now it is unlikely you could be sued for your prior use of the software, as you had a reasonable expectation that what you were doing was with the permission of the copyright holder because you were obeying the license the copyright holder put on the software. But, if that license is made invalid everything reverts to copyrght law and you no longer have any license giving you permission to use or distribute some one else's copyrighted work aka the software. So, any subsequent distribution would be subject to copyright law and without a new license, illegal.
This is where people knowledgeable about the GPL and copyright law laugh at those who want to invalidate it thinking that it makes the software public domain. If the license is invalid there is no license which means the copyright holder retains all rights and no one has permission to distribute the software anymore. There is no law or legal precedent that automatically makes a copyrighted work public domain other than expiration of the copyright term. If there were there would not be the problem of so many orphaned copyrighted works that cannot be archived or rescued because the copyright holder cannot be identified.
In a lower post you say if you pay money for a license you are allowed to use the software. But, we can show the same effect there as well. Click wrap licenses are a good example since they have had portions ruled invalid or unenforceable before. The key is that the copyright holder did have a choice they could have revoked the license and you would no longer have permission to use the software, but more typically they just let you continue using the software under the same license minus the invalidated clause, or more analagous to the GPL issue under a new license that is the same as the original minus the invalidated clause. If they did revoke the license because of the invalidated clause, I suspect you could reasonably sue for a refund of your license fee, and they could not sue you for prior use because you reasonably thought you had a license. In the end there is nothing in it for the copyright holder of paid software to revoke licenses when some egregious license term that they really had no intention of ever enforcing gets invalidated.