woodelf wrote:
If it comes to a court battle, do courts generally side with the letter of a contract, or the spirit? That is:
A writes a contract, intending it to mean X
However, a strict legal reading of the contract leads to it meaning Y
B comes along, and, in good faith, follows the letter of the contract, thus abiding by terms X
A says "no, it's supposed to mean Y" and takes it to court.
Who does the court side with? Does it change if B is perfectly aware that the "intended" meaning is Y, but chooses to abide by the actual meaning X?
I was taught in class that the courts favor the letter of the contract to the extent that the contract is unambiguous, and when it is ambiguous, they interpret it against the drafter of said contract.
Wouldn't that mean that, in the case of ambiguous things like behavior of PI, use of the D20 logo on compilations, forbiddence of chargen and advancement, the FAQs would be explicitly wrong? That is, if it's ambiguous in the contract, so they are forced to publish a FAQ just to make sense of it, and someone has a conflicting interpretation of the license, wouldn't interpreting it "against the drafter" mean ignoring the FAQs?
This is, as I hear, a good sized bulk of the law, btw. Oodles of case law, written law, public policy, et cetera determine exactly what words mean what things--if strict adherence to a contract is necessary, it's probably best to engage in discussion with both parties as to what the terms shall be, and allowing for ample review time before the contract is signed.
IMO, when dealing with the OGL it is always best to act as if the letter AND the spirit of the OGL are all that matters--and that the FAQs and HOWTOs and whatnot are all well and good and gospel truth. If you want to go against the spirit, it's your own neck on the line and I want no part of it--and if you've messed up, the best thing to do is to take the first tolerable offer that your offendee gives you.
That's a fine stance, but who decides "the spirit" of the WotC OGL? Just WotC? Or the whole open-game-content community? Aren't a great many of our discussions here precisely about what the spirit is, so that we can pick the interpretation of the letter that matches it? What if i believe that Ryan sincerely wanted a proper viral open-content license, and WotC's interpretations (as found in the FAQs, among other places) seem to contradict this? Do i abide by the spirit that Ryan espouses, since he was behind the whole thing, or the spirit WotC espouses, since they drafted it?
Let's say that everyone else, even those who've hired lawyers, agrees that PI behaves according to the "white out" theory. And *then* WotC updates the FAQ to explicitly describe the "prohibited words" theory. Who's right?
In short, what if i believe that sticking to the letter of the license *is* supporting the spirit of the license, while WotC doesn't? What should i do?
Or, what if i believe it is impossible to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the license? Then what?
[Which, btw, is the stance i'm slowing moving towards through these discussions: that is, that the license does *not* embody the spirit of open-content development, so, if the letter of the license accurately matches the intent of the drafters, then that intent wasn't open-content development, despite their claims. Though, if Ryan's explanation of the nature of PI (essentially the "white out" interpretation) is correct, that shifts my stance back towards the spirit being open-content.]
--
woodelf <*>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://webpages.charter.net/woodelph/
The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. -- Kosh _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
