Tidelift co-founder and general counsel Luis Villa breaks down the recent judicial ruling in the Vizio lawsuit and how it could potentially strengthen the GPL
  • @assembly
    33•9 months ago

    Thanks so much I had not been tracking this case but it pissed me off to no end when I heard that Vizio was refusing to uphold the GPL. They are more than happy to greatly benefit from the labors of open source development but the second they have to do the smallest step in support of the GPL, they fight it. I doubt there is anything overly interesting that they could release. My mind is assuming they don’t want anyone to see the actual level of their data gathering.

    • @eldritch_lichOP
      10•9 months ago

      The best outcome would be setting a precedent that allows FOSS organisations to send threatening letters to companies that violate the license. An individual dev maintaining a small library may theoretically be able to win a lawsuit, but practically? lmao good luck

      • @EldritchEnglish
        5•9 months ago

        It might be worth something for the open source community to consider open funding for a group that would help devs to do just that. It wouldn’t help everyone. But it might help enough to make an impact for everyone.

        • @eldritch_lichOP
          3•9 months ago

          I think this could even be related to the idea of post-open source that Bruce Perens talked about. An organisation which helps its members handle the business-y parts of running large community projects. They could handle funding, legal representation, marketing and any other support that members may want. A large number of members would make it that much more effective as well.

  • @[email protected]
    8•9 months ago

    I now want to become a kernel contributor just so that it would be possible for me to use the copyright excuse too

    • @eldritch_lichOP
      10•9 months ago

      If I understand correctly, this applies to users, not just contributors. As a user of the software you are entitled to a copy of the source code.

      • @EldritchEnglish
        2•9 months ago

        Exactly. What are contributors? If not, also users?

  • @grueEnglish
    4•9 months ago

    Reading this article made me giggle with glee.

  • @muntedcrocodile
    4•9 months ago

    Did that just open the floodgates for any lawyer to sue anyone not complying with an opensource licence

    • @eldritch_lichOP
      1•9 months ago

      It does seem that way but there’s a tendency to oversimplify these topics. It’s probably best to just Wait And See™

      There probably needs to be more precedent. If I knew a company was exploiting one of my FOSS projects, I certainly wouldn’t start a lawsuit. I’d complain about it on social media but I doubt I would even be able to do much else.