encforceability of Open Source Licences (Re: (OT) - NOT A Major Blow to Copyleft Theory)

Michael Poole mdpoole at troilus.org
Mon Feb 11 15:10:48 UTC 2008


David A. Temeles, Jr. writes:

> License-discuss may not be the appropriate forum for the discussion
> Alexander is raising, but this topic is of significant interest and import
> to the open source community and should be discussed vigorously by the
> members of the open source community.  I would think that the members of
> this list would have more intellectual curiosity in the enforceability of
> open source licenses than demonstrated over the past few days in the
> responses to Alexander's posts.  

The topic is of interest and import.  Frivolous legal theories are
not.  If the sheer number of his posts did not alert you, Alexander
Terekhov has little going for him except endurance.  Many of us who
have been around have already argued with him, made no headway, and
given up on any threads -- or even mailing lists -- where he is a
chronic poster.  I am quite comfortable calling him a troll and
leaving it at that; his interpretation of many legal doctrines is so
much at odds with the rest of the free and open source communities
that only rather specific (and so far lacking) court rulings are
likely to change minds.

Even that is debatable, though: Terekhov backed Daniel Wallace from
the early days of Wallace's anti-GPL lawsuits.  He seemed to think[1]
-- even after several losses -- that Wallace was really right.  No
word on whether he's changed his mind since[2].

[1]- http://www.archivum.info/gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org/2006-06/msg00156.html
[2]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_versus_International_Business_Machines_et_al

Michael



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