On Sat, 28 Oct 2000, Stanislav Malyshev a.k.a Frodo wrote:
> Moreover, they don't have to prove anything. Just the fact that developers
> of project X will be engaged in legal battles instead of developing code,
> will be enough to drive volonteers and donations (especially from
> commercial entities that want to benefit from the end result) off and will
> essentially make project success very hard if possible. Professionally
> made litigation can be very powerful weapon. Especially one with
> substantial base like existance of really stolen code in the same
> direction.
But if MS threatens an open-source project that it will pursue legal
battles against it, it will have to do that in public. If it repeats that
threat, it will get a lot of bad publicity. In Israel, Microsoft has an
hegmoney because of the better Hebrew support, but that's not the case in
the Latin-alphabet countries where most of MS revenue is made. So, I think
it has a lot to lose, and too little to gain.
Besides, MS programmers will also have to attend courtrooms and stuff like
that, and MS isn't flooded with _programming_ talent either. (I'm sure it
has a fair share of legal talent, but nowadays, who doesn't? :-)).
Sorry for the double post.
Shlomi Fish
> --
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] \/ There shall be counsels taken
> Stanislav Malyshev /\ Stronger than Morgul-spells
> phone +972-3-9316425 /\ JRRT LotR.
> http://sharat.co.il/frodo/ whois:!SM8333
>
>
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Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
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The prefix "God Said" has the extraordinary logical property of
converting any statement that follows it into a true one.
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