APL license - What about the enforced logos?

[John Cowan]

Rick Moen scripsit:

> It's a serious concern.[1]  At the same time, I offer, pro bono publico,
> some rather magic words $SPOUSE once used to strike terror into a
> lavishly VC-funded CEO who'd threatened her with (baseless) litigation:
> "Discovery should prove interesting."

Thanks; I'll remember that.

> In my (strictly hypothetical!) case of CentralOS, the webmaster pulled
> all mention of Scarlet Sombrero from the site upon mere receipt of a
> complaint _e-mail_.  An e-mail!  I mean, that's just sad:  Scarlet
> Sombrero didn't even bother to lavish 39 cents on non-certified-mail 
> postage and a #10 envelope -- and CentralOS ran screaming in terror
> without ever stopping to think.

The text we see is said to have been "published" to a mailing list longer
publicly available, despite the claim on the news page.  Nothing is
said of who published it, and there is no evidence one way or the other
how the text got to the CentOS team.  What we read may very well be a
transcription of an ordinary letter sent to CentOS.

> You're rich enough to volunteer that you'll do anything that a C&D
> letter orders you to, without regard to merit:  That sounds awfully
> _expensive_, to me.  (And you've said it on a searchable mailing list
> archive, too.)

Truth, poor girl, was nobody's daughter,
She took off her clothes and jumped into the water.

> [1] Yr. humble servant at the age of ten experienced a wrongful-death
> lawsuit brought by his mother against a most unpleasant and underhanded
> Fortune 50 corporation, and so spending most of one's teenage years in
> Federal court is not a hypothetical matter.  (Yes, we won, thanks.)

Plaintiffs, indeed, can often get lawyers who work on a contingency basis,
at least in the United States.  Defendants are generally not so fortunate.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org   http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
O beautiful for patriot's dream that sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears!
America! America!  God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!
        -- one of the verses not usually taught in U.S. schools