Yorick Cool writes: > If the default rules of law force you to accept a lawsuit brought upon > you in New York, then a license with no choice of venue clause very > much does force you to go to NY if you don't want to.
It should be quite plain that the license has nothing to do with that imposition. > The critical point that you are missing is that when a license doesn't > state a rule on a particular point, the default rules of law are de > facto incorporated in it. Hence it is absurd to consider non-free a > license because of a clause which shall have an effect very much > comparable to what a license whith no such clause would > have. (Obviously, this only applies if we consider the "silent" > license as free.) I do not miss that point at all; I think that the default rules of law are preferable to the imposition of a forum selected by the licensor. > Michael> Thus it is a form of discrimination. It imposes costs (conditional, > Michael> but still costs) on some people that it does not impose on > Michael> others. > > As does every single license on earth, because you could be sued in a > foreign country or not depending on the law of the land. Again, this is not something imposed by the license. The fact that a license is mute as to human rights or being able to use cryptographic software does not mean that it is non-free in countries that neglect human rights or that outlaw cryptography. Quite simply, a free software license should not attempt to correct wrongs that exist outside of the software. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]