Subject: Re: Licensing constraints...?????
To: None <flipk@idea.exnet.iastate.edu, current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@panix.com>
List: current-users
Date: 08/28/1997 12:20:34
Sigh....

Perhaps there should simply be a periodic posting pointing out that Phil is
not a lawyer, and that there's no particular reason anyone should give any
more weight to his legal advice than to that of Bozo the Clown.

Or, for that matter, to mine.

I mean, to quote Ted the last time Phil started ranting about The Way The Law
Is (Because I Said So):

> Why don't you back this up with some evidence?   You can certainly
> make any random claim you want about anything, but you're not really
> engaging in a constructive dialog if all you have to defend your
> arguments is vigourous assertion.

Those of us who've actually worked places that have been entangled in the
ornate and expensive disaster which is legal action over intellectual property
-- or even legal action _at all_, for that matter, might, I suspect, be
inclined to disagree with you about the certainty of What The Law Is, and
certainly about whether it pays to take the chance that a court would be so
kind to agree with Phil's personal opinions on the subject.

Not to mention "oops!  I didn't mean to send that copyrighted code of yours to
the FSF and claim it was mine!"  "oops!  I didn't mean to commit that ethernet
driver to our source tree when you gave it to me under a no-redistribution
license!" oops, oops, oops.  Phil, has it occurred to you that maybe one
reason a lot of care is taken with copyrights in NetBSD is because we *don't*
want to commit little "oops"es like those?

Thor