Bruce Perens Seeks Mandatory Award of Legal Fees For His Defense in Open Source Security, Inc. and Bradley Spengler v. Bruce Perens

When Bruce Perens commented that a company violated Open Source licensing conditions publicly last year, that company wanted him to stop and sued him for libel. Now a judge has indicated they should pay hefty legal bill under California’s anti-SLAPP law. Anti-SLAPP is the most powerful statute of any statute in all 50 states to protect the free speech rights of citizens. As Bruce writes, the … “comments are first amendment speech protected by the California anti-SLAPP law. While Open Source Security and Mr. Spengler were free to disagree with my opinions, they were not free to sue me to try to stop me from expressing them.” Judge Beeler went so far as to note: “[T]he court has difficulty seeing how the present claims can elude California’s anti-SLAPP statute,” she said.