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Comment by drstrangevibes | Hacker News Reader

ka...wha?! I want my money back! I didnt support him so he can settle?!

But you donated to a legal defense fund. You may have hoped for a different outcome, but the fund was for the defense of the individual, and in this case settlement was likely the best defense.

But maybe he promised not to settle in soliciting donations, all I see is a blog post saying here is a legal defense fund. And even if he said he would demand certain things, the fact remains that he was defending himself and has to make the right call.

No the fund was not for the defence of an individual. You assume that the defence was for an individual and not a community. (from geohot.com) "Together, we can help fix the system". Hardly sounds self serving does it? The community rallied because it was largely felt that an attack on GH was an attack on all of us. I may have reconsidered my donation if GH had said "Together we can help save my ass"

You could have gone to the courthouse in California and announced yourself as one of the Does who wished to be represented fairly in court if you felt that this court case involved you just as much as it involved him.

In another context, GeoHot saying "Together, we ..." is much like his saying "if you want your console to be secure get in touch with me, any of you 3", and SCEA interpreting that as extorsion. If anything, it goes to prove that GeoHot is not an English major and has difficulty being succinct and direct in writing. Assuming that he actually is going to band the community together to "stick it to the man" is fairly naive. He was the one being sued, and his number one priority was to stay out of jail and not get his paycheck garnished for the next 65 years.

You could have gone to the courthouse in California and announced yourself as one of the Does who wished to be represented fairly in court

Very interesting, I didn't know this was possible. Are there any cases when people did this that I can read about? Thanks!

For all you know, the settlement may have been motivated by a desire to preserve the community from a highly unfavorable precedent.

From his blog, he replies in the comments: "I will address the donations in a forthcoming post, and I think people will be happy."

I donated because I've been in those shoes. I donated so he wouldn't get a million dollar settlement. Trust me, when you're in the position settling for something that doesn't involve millions of dollars that you don't have sounds like a good idea. As they say on Wall St. Stay alive to trade another day.

Did you donate enough for him to win?

once again the naivety of the general "smart" populous is proven.

(not intended to insult or anything, I'm part of the naive populous, but this seems to happen constantly)

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