The difference is that the suit in that case was for billions of dollars.

The suit in this case would be for compliance with the GPL.

nvidia are in compliance, they are working around it with a shim, that is why he says the new guards are put in place to enforce the "intention" of the original changes. There is no case

That's not really how licences work. "Ha, ha I have a workaround that negates the intent of your license with a clever hack" is not a defensible position.

that is how licenses work, they aren't about what you "intend"

Every additional interest involved in the case would multiply legal complexity, and legal costs, probably exponentially.

The remedy is only one part of the cost of lawsuits.

Discovery and attorney fees would be a big portion of the picture here. If there's no settlement reached, each party will have a right to collect and comb through documents related to the lawsuit. Further, they'd have the right to interview (take a deposition of) everyone involved in decisions surrounding the controversy.

That means, nVidia would (likely) have the right to start talking to people in HP, Intel, AMD, Oracle, broadcom, On semiconductor, etc. Practically anyone involved with kernel development and decision making around kernel development.

The US civil legal system is designed to try and force parties into settlement. However, when you have a major corporation with cash to burn, they can win simply by dragging everything out.

> Lawsuits are like nuclear war in this instance.

Are they? Because big companies seem to sue each other all the time, even while actively collaborating in other areas. Is Linus suing NVIDIA for blatantly working around technical measures to prevent copyright infringement really worse than Apple suing Samsung for selling phones that look like theirs, or than Oracle suing Google because they made Java-compatible APIs?

> If someone starts the ball rolling, it's a long and expensive legal battle with tons of parties involved. Consider the Oracle v Google lawsuit which started in 2010 and was resolved in 2021.

Sounds more like normal "war". Yeah, you'd have to figure out who would finance Linus' side, but it doesn't seem like it should be that difficult.

> With the number of companies involved in the kernel you are looking at a much longer and more expensive trial all around.

Why would other companies be involved? Linus doesn't have to sue everyone, he can just sue NVIDIA. Other companies might submit briefs, but that would be voluntary.

> Why would other companies be involved? Linus doesn't have to sue everyone, he can just sue NVIDIA. Other companies might submit briefs, but that would be voluntary.

In a civil lawsuit, both parties are entitled to "discovery" which means knowing what the other party knows about the controversy in question. It would be reasonable discovery for nVidia to want interviews with engineers in HP that have contributed to kernel development. Whether these companies want to be involved in the lawsuit or not, they'll get dragged in because they've directly participated in kernel development and/or governance.

Now, discovery isn't unlimited, so it's possible for a judge to say "actually, this steps too far, you only need to talk to linus" but that's in no means a guarantee.

https://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/lawsuits-and-the-co...