Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] GPL defense issues

[James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>]

On Wed, 2016-08-24 at 23:33 +0200, Jiri Kosina wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Aug 2016, James Bottomley wrote:
[...]
> > > But I don't understand your implication that having yourself 
> > > dragged into a GPL enforcement lawsuit is somehow a personal
> > > disaster.
> > 
> > The specific problem is that we, as kernel developers, are used to
> > giving frank and unvarnished opinions, which are totally unlike the
> > carefully phrased non-statements that lawyers usually make.  Fine, 
> > if what you've said helps Christoph or other plaintifs, but 
> > consider what happens if an unguarded statement of yours ends up 
> > helping the alleged violator because it can be construed in a way 
> > you didn't intend.   This, exactly, is the fear and, I think, you 
> > would regard something like this as a bit of a disaster.
> 
> Sure, but if everyone is "just afraid" to provide a sincere testimony
> (especially if this includes just people from one side of the 
> dispute), then I wouldn't put my bets on a positive result of the
> lawsuit.

I think the classic lawyer joke about their memoirs is that they should
be entitled "what my client meant to say ...".  Cases can be won or
lost (sometimes regardless of the issues) because of an unguarded
remark made by the client.

I'm not advocating that we don't have the session, I just want everyone
to have a very clear understanding of why there's a huge concern about
discussing an ongoing case.

James