Owning a Cause of Action
The prospect of litigation over open source software is disturbing to all of us. Open source software cannot flourish in a litigious environment in which everyone is suing everybody else over perceived injustices relating to open source licenses.
Indeed, in practice, there is very little litigation over open source. After all, why would a licensor who is permitting everyone to copy, modify, and distribute his or her software need to complain about someone who did those things? And why would a licensee who receives software with essentially unlimited rights to it need to demand even more from the licensor? When the software is essentially free (i.e., zero price), and when software freedom is guaranteed by the license, ...
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