Brandon Lozza, who has treated this site to multiple bogus DMCA infringement complaints regarding our publication—with permission—of his email, has published a private email of my own, and on that basis is now claiming that I've "defamed" Richard Stallman and Bruce Perens. (Note that I'm pointing out Lozza's hypocrisy here, not complaining about the republication, particularly: I wouldn't say anything in a "private" email to a criminal like Michael Rudra Nath/Jason Christopher Hughes that I wasn't willing to see in public, especially with his past history...)
(Let's not forget that Lozza has in the past publicly claimed to have access to evidence that I'm a pedophile and a publisher of pornography, among other things, and has also been a participant in the criminal harassment of and intentional affliction of emotional distress to members of my immediate family.)
Unsurprisingly, Roy, who is likewise not a lawyer, is happy to repeat that claim (which might, itself, constitute defamation under UK libel law)...
The fact is that my publicly critiquing the statements and positions of major public figures in the free software world, by parody, hyperbole, litotes, sarcasm or other rhetorical means, does not constitute defamation, in any way, shape or form. (That's actually what this web site is about, in case it had escaped anyone's notice.)
As is well-known by now, at the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit, Mr. Stallman made what he called a "harmless little joke" that "EMACS virgins were women who had never used EMACS" and that members of the "Church of EMACS" had "a holy duty to relieve them of their virginity". No mention of "May I?" in there at all. That's called "non-consensual" where I come from. As Chani Armitage noted in her blog
talking about relieving women of their virginity casts women in a submissive role, with men in a dominant role, and brings up thoughts of oppression and (indirectly) rape. (yes, thinking about a roomful of guys thinking about taking womens’ virginity does eventually lead me to wondering how many of them would take it by force.) it becomes less about the non-sexual meaning of “virgin” and more about all the crazy ideas societies have had about virgin women. and thinking about that stuff would make any woman uncomfortable.
I've pointed out that this "harmless little joke" is tantamount to advocacy of rape several times in the past, as have a number of others. This is not news, I'm afraid.
So I stand by my paraphrase of Stallman's statements, and if Brandon would like to attempt to bring a defamation suit on Mr. Stallman's behalf, he's welcome to have at it, but he won't get far: he doesn't have standing in the matter, and he wouldn't have a case if he did (nor would Stallman, but I invite him to sue me and prove me wrong.)
I'd suggest in future that Brandon might want to consult with Stallman in advance before he starts acting as his (totally unqualified and clearly incompetent) legal counsel. Do they have malpractice laws in Canada....? How about giving legal advice without a license...?
As for Mr. Perens, he's made the following offer to his "strategic clients" and to other companies who are currently being sued by the SFLC for failure to comply with the GPL over their (mis)use of busybox:
I will offer them a waiver of my interest [in busybox] where appropriate. I will also offer a waiver to those companies that use my assistance in coming in to compliance with the Busybox license, at my usual consulting rate for that assistance rather than "damages" related to my copyright, regardless of their past or present infringement.
The fact is that Bruce Perens seems to, at this point in time, have no copyright "interest" in busybox whatsoever, "at [his] usual consulting rate" or otherwise. Every bit of code he ever contributed has been removed or replaced years ago, specifically to remove his interest in a project in which he hadn't participated in the better part of a decade, so that the actual maintainers could actually maintain it.
Perens has an ongoing tiff with the current and previous maintainers since the time he walked away from this important project, and he's actually acting counter to the interests of the current authors and maintainers of the code and the Software Freedom Law Center in making this completely meaningless offer, so it seems decidedly arguable that there are any circumstances in which his involvement is "appropriate" at all.
So, I stand by that as well. I'd make the same observations as to Brandon's actions as a legal counsel, albeit one apparently completely ignorant of the law, on Mr. Perens' behalf, and I'd extend the same invitation to Mr. Perens as I have to Mr. Stallman.
Mr. Lozza is now attempting to interfere with my employment by sending his legal-ish observations to a variety of otherwise-completely-uninvolved third parties related to my day to day work.
And again, in case anyone hadn't noticed, the opinions which appear on this site are mine, all mine, and do not in any way reflect those of my employer, the GNOME Foundation, the Dalai Lama, the State of Nebraska, the Planet Mars, the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Bavarian Illuminati, or any other persons or organizations.
It's surprising you have to explain these things to some people, but you do.
