this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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Because I'm not interested in being sued for defamation. Even if I'm totally right and they're totally wrong, they'll bury me in legal fees. I'm not rich enough to afford the law.
There a simple incantation u can mutter its the same shield the press uses its called "allegedly". Otherwise talk to the press themselves doesnt matter who even if they are fucking tiny af doesnt matter then post the link to said article everywhere.
Idk if you can say allegedly, when you're the person doing the allegation 🤔
Not to mention, OP didn't specify where they live. Who knows defamation law for the whole world?
Then you’d have a great defense right?
A defense you could use if you’ve already been sued?
Glad we have that law but seemingly unavoidably stacked in favor of the wealthy / those with assistants/teams/lawyers. Massive mental cost of getting involved in court for anything, one that isn’t possible to be “repaid” when you win.
(Not to discourage people who know what they’re getting into! Fight the power, if ya can)
Edit: typo
Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have anti-SLAPP laws which render a baseless defamation lawsuit against you into a blessing which you can turn around, counter sue for, and end up with a nice payday.
That entire process still needs lots of cash up front does it not?
Not necessarily cash, but definitely a bit of luck. Some lawyers, if they think a case is guaranteed to go your way, will do the work for free in exchange for receiving a portion of the damages the final judgement will award you. Even rarer, some lawyers care enough about some issues on a personal level that they'll work for free, or reduced rates, on certain cases.
In this case, I'm not sure there are any damages whatsoever to award to OP - a "win" is forcing the company to abide by the GPL, not pay up money. The EFF and the FSF, as others have brought up, are probably the best bet to find lawyers that would work on this case for the outcome instead of the pay.
This. Sucks we can't just say shit like it is but it's just as easy to make it up. I'm not going to verify the claims myself but if OP said it was Vandelay Industries I might make the decision to not do business with them.
It's a little late now since the accusation has already been made but it's essentially legal to state verifiable facts without drawing conclusions from those facts. Still, doesn't mean the company won't come after you, just that they risk calling attention to the issue. Unfortunately I know of no remedy or repercussions for a company filing a baseless lawsuit.
IANAL BTW.
I'm pretty sure nobody here knows who you are. Say the name, and some of us will just make this company's life a living he'll by spamming them to give us the source. Win - win (except for that POS company)and you remain anonymous. What are they going to do, sue your Lemmy handle?
That's flawed logic. The company would pretty easily know who has been emailing to request the source code for that specific tool in the timeline just before this post. The lemmy profile may be anonymous, but I doubt OP's emails were.
Why would anyone mention anyone was emailing them? I'm talking about just doing the same without any type of other info.
Well the context was a concern about a defamation suit resulting from this post. If the company never found this post then the anonymity of the poster is irrelevant anyway. The company could easily tell who made this post based on the timing of their already existing email correspondance seeing as this is clearly not a request they receive often.
Oh, I didn't think about it, but you're right. That does make sense.
This is why we have journalists - worst case, take this information to some newspaper, who will likely LOVE to poke the bear.
OK, maybe that's a little idealistic, but at least you can try, eh?
What does it rhyme with?
With Rosehip. But good news: it would appear my ticket finally made its way to the development team and to legal. They sure are taking their own sweet time like a good giant corporation dealing with a pointless single guy, but things seem to be moving in the right direction.
If they refuse again this time, considering they now acknowledged that my ticket is processed where it should be processed, I will contact the FSF, and name and shame. But for now they're showing good will.
Good on you for doing the right thing.