[megiddo]

What's the point of this story? Bad actors win?

Here's a hot take: Name and Shame.

If this story is true, the author should be shouting their names from the rooftop.

Instead, we get this nonsense.

[noirscape]

The point of this story is that open source can't protect you against a bully with a legal department at his command, and neither can it protect you against bad contract clauses. Frivolous legal threats may be frivolous, but you have to prove that in court and a lot of companies would rather take the easier way out to avoid having to do that.

The "FOSS" company never directly threatened the author, but the implication of it alone was enough to scare off both agencies. Given a lot of the tech is mixed up here on purpose, there's a few FOSS companies & vendors I can think of with legal departments that I'd describe as "pretty aggressive" and "expensive for a managed solution" that aren't solely about Exchange related services but would definitely behave like this, given their PR over the years at times has had slipped masks.

[citizenpaul]

>a bully with a legal department

This basically sums up modern corporate status quo. T

> "pretty aggressive"

The legal system has been weaponized against the average person. This is the veil it hides behind. A legal department can be downright boring yet vicious at the same time. Like how they slow roll any employee legal dispute to the maximum legal time limit in expectation that they can financially out wait the employee. Which they almost always can.

[m-s-y]

> The point of this story is…

The point is that without the identifying information it might as well be a creative writing exercise.

Good anecdotes have power because they actually happened and are verifiable to some degree. This is neither.

[draga79]

The point is: always own your data

[jimmar]

> What's the point of this story? Bad actors win?

Know your contracts. Read the fine print. Be careful who you do business with. Not all companies selling services for open source software embrace the ethos that we assume they do.

After reading the story, I can understand why somebody would not name and shame. The author could be inviting lawsuits from a company that clearly has no qualms playing dirty.

[lucianbr]

Something I read in the story is that the legal system fails to do its job: to make society fair. There are contracts and lawyers in the story, but they do not work toward ensuring fairness or justice, they work to help the company with more laywers and less scruples.

[NickC25]

>The author could be inviting lawsuits from a company that clearly has no qualms playing dirty.

Could it possibly involve a particularly litigious law firm masquerading as a tech company run by one rich asshole?

[draga79]

Exactly!

[abirch]

The naming and shaming should be the top organic google result. People need to own their reputation.

[emmelaich]

What if the vendors or management have organised crime connections? It's not worth your kneecaps.

[Moosdijk]

>Here's a hot take: Name and Shame.

That's easier said than done, hence why Stefano probably didn't.

[lezojeda]

It's so easy to demand a name and shame when you won't be the one facing potential social and economic consequences of doing so.