I have no idea as to the merits of the case, but I find it funny how liberally some OSS types feel with regard to copyright.
At least for GPL advocates, copyright is a feature, not a bug. "Copyleft" may very well be just a hack of copyright law, but it depends on strong copyright to work at all. That's why so many Free and open source software projects take the progeny and licensing of source code so seriously. It's not simply that we wish to comply with the law, but that the laws regarding copyright are essential to the ecosystem as a whole.
There was a reason I made clear to mention GPL advocates. There are differing definitions of "software freedom" that target the developers of software and the users of software.
When your political movement aims to ensure that the source code for the software that people are using is actually available and stays available then you need something like copyleft.
If your idea is instead to ensure that people are free to release source code for free if they wish, then there's not actually a battle to be had! That was how software started out after all, but that was also what led eventually to users being closed off from their source code.
RMS explains it better than I can: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...
(Unless I'm misunderstanding, you can charge for GPL software, you just cannot charge for the source once they've got a binary. You also can use your own fork of GPL on your hardware without releasing any source.)
See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMon...
I believe this is no longer true (at least in general) as of GPL v3. In fact this "Tivoization" is one of the very things the GPLv3 was intended to combat.
Software-as-a-Service is another thing they were aiming at... I don't know offhand if it made it into GPLv3 or not.
In short: copyleft only depends on copyright because it has to, and it only has to because it's a minority position. Actual GPL supporters would be perfectly happy if the equivalent of the gpl was law and normal copyright did not exist.
Some contributors that you know - perhaps the majority that you know - may be shaky about this, they may not understand this, but it doesn't make it false and nor does it mean that other contributors are ignorant.
tptacek thanks for being the voice of reason in these infosec law threads.
Remember in the Netscape vs. Microsoft case, when the contents of Jamie Zawinsky's "Really Bad Ideas" mailing list were released? That was because of a discovery order demanding Netscape's email spools.
It's for exactly this reason that large companies have specific policies about document retention.
Also, I'd assume we don't get to hear about the people that actually are too good, as they'd be more likely than most to avoid getting suspected in the first place.
I'd accept upon equal consideration being provided. Why should he have to be forced to pay for what is essentially a fishing expedition by the prosection? would they have a case should the computer not be taken?
Does it say whether he copied features in a new implementation, or copied actual source code from his employer's existing implementation?
What's happening here is that Cory Thuen, a former developer of a network security product called Sophia at a company called Batelle, was fired (he did not "leave") apparently after it was determined that he was making a personal copy of Sophia called Visdom that he planned on open sourcing. When Thuen went on to start his own company to release Visdom (Southfork), Batelle sued for copyright infringement.
Two things are happening at this point in the story, if I'm following it right. First, Batelle has prevailed in a preliminary injunction ordering Thuen to take down Visdom. It did so by making a showing that convinced the court it was likely to prevail in its suit, and that argument included admissions from Thuen that he had copied at least some of Sophia.
Next, Thuen is being ordered to comply with discovery in the suit. Hard drive images are standard ESI evidence in cases like these; it is not at all weird that a court would order an image of a hard drive. The idea that an adversary in a civil proceeding might get access to content like this isn't at all weird; it's a basic result of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
There are two wrinkles to this case:
First, the court ordered that Thuen be served with the demand for his computer without prior notice. According to the order, this is something that the court can do in extreme situations to prevent evidence from being spoiled. The reasoning the court used here is janky: Thuen claimed to be a "hacker", and the court hung its assessment that he might be likely to blitz his hard drive on that.
Second, the court order escrows the hard drive image with the court, allowing Batelle's forensic expert to image the drive but not examine that image; the court hasn't yet determined what access Batelle will have to the image, but is instead taking steps to ensure that the image is available should it be needed.
Once again: hard drive images are not an unusual product of civil discovery. You do not have a "4th amendment right" to avoid civil discovery.
The "hacker" thing is facially ridiculous. But contra Digital Bond's claim, "hacker" didn't enable the hard drive imaging to occur; that was going to occur during discovery no matter what. Instead, "hacker" changed the prior notification procedure used to obtain the image.