In gnu.misc.discuss Rjack <[email protected]> wrote: > Alan Mackenzie wrote: >> In gnu.misc.discuss Rjack <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Alan Mackenzie wrote: >>>> In gnu.misc.discuss Rjack <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> That's a very strange statement. The GPL is not so designed; >>>> it is designed to "waive particular rights" over any who >>>> conform to its requirements, regardless of the contractual >>>> privy. It is thus not a contractual license, since there are >>>> no contractual negotiations or handshakes involved. >> .... But I wasn't talking about the US courts' >> possible application of Humpty Dumpty language. I really don't >> much care about whether the GPL is a "contract" in some US >> American jurisdiction. > I really don't much care about whether the GPL is a "contract" in > some non US American jurisdiction. Neither do I. > I am not familiar with the law of non US American jurisdictions. Where > of one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Perhaps you should > adopt that philosophy. Not at all! Far better to ask question and further educate oneself, so that in the future one can speak thereof. >> I'm saying that for all reasonable values of the term "contract", >> the GPL fails to be one - it lacks all the characteristics of a >> contractual relationship, for instance, the meeting of minds, the >> negotiation, the passing of something of value in both >> directions, the definite "handshake" which finalises it. > Where did you ever get such misinformed notions? Through being a highly educated native English speaker. I looked it up in a dictionary, too. "Contract" (noun) means agreement (when it doesn't mean "get smaller", or the like). I suspect that the GPL isn't a contract in any USA jurisdiction, rather that it is for certain purposes subject to some of the same regulations. >>>> By your statement, are you trying to show that the GPL isn't >>>> really a copyright license, or are you making a historical >>>> assertion, that this was the motivation of the original >>>> license designers? >> No, I'm asking you what you meant by your paragraph, the one that >> ends with "privity". > Why would you ask such a question after expressing, "But I wasn't > talking about the US courts' possible application of Humpty Dumpty > language"? Actually, I asked it beforehand, but seeing as how the subjects are unrelated, the order doesn't matter. >> I'm genuinely puzzled as to what you're trying to say. Care to >> elucidate? > I am genuinely puzzled as to what you are asking. OK. Here's you're paragraph again: : Copyright licenses are designed to waive particular rights : to exclude so that licensees may use those personam rights : granted by the copyright owner in contractual privity. You might have meant this as a definitional criterion for a copyright license, asserting that the GPL, since it doesn't satisfy that criterion, isn't a copyright license at all. (The bit of the condition it doesn't satisfy is the "in contractual privity"). Alternatively, you might have been talking about why, historically, copyright licenses arose - that sometime after Gutenberg invented the press and copyright came into being, somebody spotted a problem, and the copyright license was designed as a solution to that problem. I'm asking you which of these interpretations you meant when you wrote the paragraph, or if neither, what you did mean. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
