How many times must it be said? The problem isn't that there's people interpreting it. The problem is that there's NO ROOM FOR INTERPRETATION.
Section 7a: > If you are a Developer, you are responsible for all features, functionality, code, and content of Third-Party Viewers that you develop or distribute. I honestly am not going to believe a Linden who's handwaving what is an OBVIOUS and CLEAR statement simply because we're not lawyers. I mean, honestly. What is a lawyer going to say? "Oh, by that, they actually mean you are NOT responsible"? I HIGHLY doubt that. On Thu, 2010-04-01 at 09:42 +0100, Morgaine wrote: > On 21st March, Q Linden explained to us that legalese is not a > language amenable to "common sense" interpretation, and more > specifically, that programmers like ourselves should not expect to > understand this Linden TPV policy document using our normal logic and > our normal dictionary. I'll repeat his words here for clarity: > > > Kent Quirk (Q Linden) q at lindenlab.com > Sun Mar 21 10:24:13 PDT 2010 > > * I'm emphatically not a lawyer and I don't speak for our legal > team. But: > * Legalese is a specialized language. It's not strictly English, > and it's not always amenable to "common sense" interpretation. > Think of lawyers as people who write code in an underspecified > language for a buggy compiler, and you begin to understand why > legalese is the way it is. There's a lot of law that isn't > stated, but is actually implied by the context of the existing > settled law. What that means is that if you're not a lawyer, > you probably shouldn't be attempting to interpret legal > documents -- especially not for other people. Similarly, if > you're not a programmer, attempting to interpret program > source code is a risky business. Programmers are especially > susceptible to trying to interpret legal documents using a > normal dictionary because they're logical thinkers. That > doesn't always work. If you have legal questions about the > implication of documents, you should ask a lawyer, not a > mailing list. > * Similarly, any comment by one of Linden's lawyers in this > forum or any other could possibly be treated as legally > binding. That also goes for Linden employees, especially those > with any seniority. So you're unlikely to get further remarks > or "clarifications", except general statements that don't > address specific questions. The policy was revised based on > comments on this list and elsewhere. That's probably a pretty > good indication that Linden Lab's lawyers now think it's clear > enough to state its intent and to stand up in court if they > need it to. > * Q > > > I've been thinking about this extraordinary post and its relationship > to our ongoing saga about the TPV, and I fail to see how any rational > person could agree to something unknown, except under duress. Is it > even legal to be required to agree to the incomprehensible? Does > anyone know how the law works in this area? > > The GPL license was written by FSF lawyers specifically to be > understood by programmers, so it's no surprise that the large majority > of people here understand it. Given that Lindens claim that they are > issuing a valid GPL license, perhaps one might accept that at face > value, and assume that GPLv2 clauses 6, 7, 11 and 12 remain intact and > valid. Therefore there are no "further restrictions" imposed on SL > TPV developers (clause 6), and the "NO WARRANTY" clause (11-12) > continues to protect developers from downstream liability, and no > "conditions are imposed on you that contradict the conditions of this > License" thus making the license valid (clause 7). > > Given the forgoing, the officially incomprehensible TPV document then > no longer matters to SL TPV developers, because their rights and > freedoms and lack of liability are determined entirely by the GPL. > (It could be no other way anyway, since we are told that we cannot > understand the TPV.) > > That leaves only the matter of users of TPVs behaving responsibly when > they use TPV clients in SL, with which I'm sure every person on this > list is happy to agree. (Note that developers become users when they > connect to SL, and are bound by the same requirements as users.) When > users do something bad with a TPV client, or indeed with a Linden > client, then naturally they are personally responsible for their > actions. > > In the absence of a TPV document that we can comprehend, perhaps this > is the best that TPV developers can do, since agreeing to > incomprehensible conditions is not something that any sensible person > should consider. > > > Morgaine. > > > _______________________________________________ > Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: > http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev > Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
