Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: kernel.org status: establishing a PGP web of trust | From | Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... | Date | Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:44:21 -0400 |
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On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:50:08 EDT, Arnaud Lacombe said:
> Just thinking about it, but even if lawyers have been involved, this > has been done, unless error of my part, behind closed doors, without > any public records, so I'd tempted to ask "who paid those lawyers?", > "what was the qualification of those lawyers?", "what was the interest > of those lawyers?" and "what was the interest of those who paid the > lawyers?".
At least in the US, the answer to "what was the interest of those lawyers?" is almost always "to represent the interests of their clients in a legally ethical manner". Intentional disregard for the client's interests can and does get you disbarred. Any lawyer who stuck in a clause that was contrary to the client's interest would also be doing so against their own interest - lawyers can get sued for malpractice or (as noted) even disbarrment. So I don't think you need to worry about some lawyer with a pro-Microsoft agenda secretly sticking in a hidden phrase that's actually against Linux's interest. (In particular, it's *really* hard to hide detrimental language in something as short and heavily read as the Developer's Certificate of Origin).
And if you *do* worry about that, you better also question whether the people supplying tin foil are part of the conspiracy too. [unhandled content-type:application/pgp-signature] | |