[abigail95]

I get mad triggered by software license violation discussions.

Please for the love of all that the FSF thinks is holy - just file a damn lawsuit if you are telling me they are violating the law. State your claim and have a court sort it out.

It costs hundreds of dollars. For a medical device? Seems like a good deal.

[austhrow743]

The OP almost certainly isn’t a copyright holder for the Linux kernel. They probably would have said if they were.

[reedciccio]

The theory is being tested that you don't need to be a copyright holder to file a lawsuit https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html

[abigail95]

Then why are they trying to enforce copyright/contract law without standing?

Making a blog post about someone elses copyright being violated is even more annoying to me.

[austhrow743]

Huh, they’re not. You’re the one saying they should.

[abigail95]

What's their basis for sending the emails then? If not one of legal standing in copyright/contract law?

Edit: My point is this is just another one of many annoying people you have to deal with who will email you alleging all sorts of legal violations, who don't themselves understand anything about the claims they are making.

[austhrow743]

Basis? You mean reason?

They want the Linux kernel source code.

[cj]

No, he means basis, not reason. There's a difference and I'm genuinely curious in your answer.

[robomartin]

In what planet does a lawsuit cost hundreds of dollars?

[abigail95]

$405

https://www.caed.uscourts.gov/caednew/index.cfm/attorney-inf...

[bitmasher9]

I’ve personally never seen a lawsuit cost less than a few grand in legal fees even for small time bully defense.

[abigail95]

This will probably dox me but I'm going to win a federal discrimination case against a university, with nothing but GPT5.x and Claude, and some filing fees. I'm no dummy but I'm not a genius. I barely got through the Advent of Code 2025 problems with a mess of spaghetti.

In my country people have a common law right to enforce the law themselves without having to pay legal fees. In America it's a statutory right I believe.

The risks of getting a costs order against me are higher than 0% but if I lose narrowly I won't be paying anything.

[robomartin]

This is a fantasy. OK, well, if the intent is to waste time and lose a lawsuit, sure, a few hundred dollars will give you that experience. In the real world, no way. A single deposition can cost many times that figure.

You can choose to disagree, of course. My guess is that you have never done this and you have never been involved in a nontrivial legal dispute outside, perhaps, small claims court. You probably don't even own a nontrivial business. Not one person running a business would ever suggest a lawsuit could cost a few hundred dollars.

Like I said, in the real world things are different. I know people who have burned through over $50K in seemingly simple cases (one of them self-represented) only to bow out once they realized they only scratched the surface. In one case they went broke, had to sell their home to pay for the losses and move to a lower cost state just to survive. Tragic. And, BTW, they didn't lose the case. They just got to a point, tens of thousands of dollars later, where they simply had to drop it or face ending-up in a far worse situation.

When I was much younger (and really stupid as most young know-it-alls are) I decided to go after a company that owed me $100K in contractually agreed-upon consulting fees. They had already paid me over a million dollars over a couple of years, so this was not about a little $100K contract.

There was a change in management and they simply decided not to pay vendors. They did this as the simplest method (aside from laying people off) to improve financials. The new CEO and his wife also happened to own a law practice.

So, I hired an attorney (no way to do this on your own for $400). $11K later I finally understood that the balance of power was not in my favor. I may have won. It may have cost me somewhere around $75K to do so.

However, then the other reality would kick in: Collecting. Yup. Collecting was probably going to cost money and maybe even another lawsuit. Not to mention the time, measured in years, for the full experience. Not to mention the real potential of them filing for bankruptcy to gift me the experience of using my judgement as rough toilet paper.

In fact, that is precisely what they did about 18 months later to other vendors, who, like me, where chasing payment. They took a year to transfer all assets to a new corporation. When the original corporation had no assets whatsoever, the went ahead and filed BK and told everyone to go shove their judgements (if any).

I was actually glad that I only burned $12K to learn an important lesson: The legal path is only viable when you are talking about going up against an equal. Like anything, there are exceptions to this, however, in general, this is the way the real world works.

Still don't believe me? If you happen to be a budding entrepreneur looking for investors, do this: During your meeting, tell them that you are not concerned about lawsuits because they can be sorted with $405. Don't blink or you'll miss to witness just how quickly they leave the room. Really.

[abigail95]

This one. That's what the filing fees are for a lawsuit like this. There's no rule saying you have to pay a lawyer to write a statement of claim.

Edit:

Courts deal with contract law disputes all the time. It's their bread and butter, everyday, nothing special stuff.

Edit2:

To you below, citation needed

[lucb1e]

Is that also what it costs when you lose and the court makes you pay their lawyer time?

[abigail95]

Use the CCB then?

Edit: I'm somewhat mad that there's all these tools out there to solve the screeching about GPL violations and nobody seems to want to use them.

[apublicfrog]

For reference for non Americans/non legal people:

> The Copyright Claims Board (CCB) is available to resolve copyright disputes of a relatively low economic value and provides an efficient, less expensive alternative to federal court.

https://ccb.gov/

[abigail95]

Thank you, I should have provided that myself and been more courteous in my response.

[monerozcash]

>nobody seems to want to use them.

Basically everybody who knows enough to try, knows what the outcomes will tend to be.