On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 04:21:57PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > Sven Luther writes: > > > The exact text of the licence is : > > > > Choice of Law > > > > This license is governed by the Laws of France. Disputes shall be > > settled by the Court of Versailles. > > > > So this means that it is a question of choice of law rather than choice of > > venue. The second phrase though would also mention choice of venue right, > > altough i have not clear understanding of the exact meaning of the "shall" > > verb. Furthermore, it seems that accordying to french law, the choice of venue > > is in the domicil of the defendant, at least in principle, which would make > > this second point void. Not sure though if there is not a special case to be > > applied to the software licence, or the international reach of this case > > though. > > At least in US contract law, the second sentence is a valid way to > choose venue for contract disputes. For a free license, I do not know > if it would be binding in a common law country, but I would imagine > that it would be binding in a civil law country such as France. > > To elaborate: > > The rules for personal jurisdiction (where you can be sued in the US) > generally say that you have to live, be headquartered, or do business > in the district where someone files suit against you. It sounds like, > that far, French law is the same. > > That can be overridden by contract and perhaps other agreements; I do > not know whether a unilateral license grant is sufficient to do that. > Without a meeting of the minds, a US court would not consider a > unilateral grant to be a binding contract, but there may be some other > basis for a court to accept the clause. > > Civil law countries define and treat contracts differently than common > law countries. I'm not a lawyer, much less one specializing in > international law, so I can't very well say how valid that clause > would be in France. My guess is that since contracts are more broadly > defined in those countries, it would be binding on licensees.
Ok, sounds reasonable, altough i am no lawyer, and really would very much prefer to be bugfixing than all this non-sense. Still, if the choice of venue is binding, does this make it non-free or not ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
