[OpenAFS] is YFS a "derived work" -- raise funds for legal opinion

[Troy Benjegerdes]

On Tue, Oct 02, 2012 at 10:12:26PM -0400, Brandon Allbery wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 10:07 PM, Troy Benjegerdes <hozer@hozed.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Oct 02, 2012 at 09:08:49PM -0400, Brandon Allbery wrote:
> > > On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Troy Benjegerdes <hozer@hozed.org>
> > wrote:
> > > > My opinion is anyone filing suit against a 'derivative work' of AFS
> > would
> > > > pretty much guarantee the end of the company filing suite. It might be
> > >
> > > Pretty optimistic, there; what are your legal credentials?
> > >
> > > If you don't have any, your opinion is somewhere between meaningless and
> > > actively dangerous; the latter, if someone were to try to rely on it.
> >
> > You're right. It is actively dangerous for pretty much any of us on this
> > list to start speculating about theoretically possible lawsuits.
> >
> > I'd like to put my money where my mouth is and put in $50 to retain the
> > FSF council Eben Moglen to answer this question with real legal advice.
> >
> 
> Honestly?  This is almost useless; such things are decided and become
> precedent only as part of active litigation.  Otherwise, what you get will
> be an informed opinion, but still an opinion and of no real significance
> were it to come to an actual legal challenge.


So really, we can only test this by having an actual lawsuit. Until that
happens, my opinion is the 'fear, uncertainty, and doubt' about a theoretical
lawsuit is more damaging than the reality. If you are worried about it,
retain a lawyer, or get some insurance 

maybe http://www.patentinsurance.com/products/ can help you. I really can't
unless you want to buy a support/service contract from me.