Bruce Perens co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric Raymond — and he’s also Slashdot reader #3872. Now he’s just won a legal victory in court. “Open Source Security, maker of the grsecurity Linux kernel patches, has been directed to pay Bruce Perens and his legal team almost $260,000 following a failed defamation claim,” reports The Register. Slashdot reader Right to Opine writes:
The order requires Spengler and his company to pay $259,900.50, with the bill due immediately rather than allowing a wait for the appeal of the case. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s attorneys will represent Perens during OSS/Spengler’s appeal of the case.
Perens was sued for comments on his blog and here on Slashdot that suggested that OSS’s Grsecurity product could be in violation of the GPL license on the Linux kernel. The court had previously ruled that Perens’ statements were not defamatory, because they were statements by a non-attorney regarding an undecided issue in law. It is possible that Spengler is personally liable for any damages his small company can’t pay, since he joined the case as an individual in order to preserve a claim of false light (which could not be brought by his company), removing his own corporate protection.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot