Re: kernel.org status: establishing a PGP web of trust

Arnaud Lacombe
2011-10-06T14:43:06Z

Hi,

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 9:44 AM, <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
> 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.
>
I do not particularly worry about any of the question I wrote, I was
merely raising unknown, from some excerpt of
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20101227144336645.

- Arnaud