Bruce Perens (Slashdot reader #3872) co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric Raymond in 1998. (And then left it this January 2nd.)
But in 2017 Perens was also sued partly over comments made in a Slashdot discussion. He’s just shared a video from the 9th Circuit Appeals Court hearing — along with this update:
Open Source Security Inc. and their CEO, Mr. Bradley Spengler, sued me for 3 Million dollars for defamation, because I wrote this blog post, in which I explained why I thought they were in violation of the GPL. They lost in the lower court, and had to file this $300,000 bond
to pay for my defense, which will be awarded to my attorneys if the appeals court upholds the lower court’s finding.
Because OSS/Spengler are in Pensylvania and I am in California, this was tried before a Magistrate in Federal court, with the laws of California and the evidentiary rules of the Federal Court. Thus, I am now in the 9th Circuit for appeal.
The first attorney to appear is for OSS/Spengler. The second works for EFF, and the third for O’Melveny. In my opinion EFF and O’Melveny did a great job.
If you are interested in the case, I have a partial archive of the case documents from PACER, and a link to PACER where the rest can be found, here.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot