FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
Please let me know what you think. - Forwarded message from Dave Cinege [EMAIL PROTECTED] - From: Dave Cinege [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 02:50:19 -0400 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Analog licence violates DFSG Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: www.psychosis.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.74 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.16 i686) Package: analog Version: 1:4.01-1 Severity: important The Analog licence states: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: 6.No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research. Analog should be moved to non-free, or the licence should be changed. I brought this issue up with the author of Analog several years ago, and it's sad to see he still has yet to change this licence. The author has been CC'ed with this bug report. Dave - End forwarded message - -- see shy jo
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 11:58:59PM -0700, Joey Hess wrote: Please let me know what you think. - Forwarded message from Dave Cinege [EMAIL PROTECTED] - The Analog licence states: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: We've had arguments over export regulations, and the general consensus is that they aren't DFSG free, so this isn't either. -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http/ftp: dvdeug.dhis.org And crawling, on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in space, lost in time, and meaning. -- RHPS
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: 6.No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research. I don't follow; maybe I'm just being dense, but section 1 seems like a no-op to me, a cover-your-ass by the attorney who wrote it to cover the case where a jurisdiction may decide that another clause in the license contradicts some law somewhere, thus rendering the license void (in that jurisdiction) or clearing the way for someone to get the author into legal hot water. That clause is arguably a feeble insurance against that. Maybe? Oh, wait, unless you're interpreting this very broadly, that it's not just the laws that apply to the copier within their specific jurisdiction, but the union set of all laws everywhere are applied to everyone. The language in the license is indeed sloppy, but I can't believe someone would reasonably think that this was what was intended. Even in that situation, though, it *still* doesn't violate DFSG #6, as far as I can tell. On a stretch, those international or local laws may be specific to an endeavor, but the license term is not. Brian
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
David Starner wrote: On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 11:58:59PM -0700, Joey Hess wrote: Please let me know what you think. - Forwarded message from Dave Cinege [EMAIL PROTECTED] - The Analog licence states: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: We've had arguments over export regulations, and the general consensus is that they aren't DFSG free, so this isn't either. I don't follow. This is not an export restriction. -- see shy jo
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
Brian Behlendorf wrote: On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: 6.No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research. I don't follow; maybe I'm just being dense, but section 1 seems like a no-op to me, a cover-your-ass by the attorney who wrote it to cover I rather agree. It does seem that if you break the law using the software, you've set your self up for a legal double whammy -- a criminal trial and a license violation suit. -- see shy jo
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 12:16:08AM -0700, Joey Hess wrote: Brian Behlendorf wrote: On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: 6.No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research. I don't follow; maybe I'm just being dense, but section 1 seems like a no-op to me, a cover-your-ass by the attorney who wrote it to cover I rather agree. It does seem that if you break the law using the software, you've set your self up for a legal double whammy -- a criminal trial and a license violation suit. It restricts the software from being used for violent overthrow of the government for example. It also forces people to follow otherwise unenforcable and unenforced international laws (technically, the Constitution never gave the UN any law making power, so as long as the U.S. is a soverign nation, internation law is only binding so long as it's enforced by a corresponding local law.) -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http/ftp: dvdeug.dhis.org And crawling, on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in space, lost in time, and meaning. -- RHPS
Re: Squeak License DFSG free?
Hi! Thanks for your help. The font-issue will be resolved soon. And it seems to be possible that the license will be changed after this is done. I hope it will then be possible for Squeak to be real Free Software In the meantime Squeak has to be part of non-free. thanks again, Marcus On Tue, Aug 29, 2000 at 12:49:51PM +0200, Peter Makholm wrote: Marcus Denker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: http://squeak.org/license.html I'm not sure we can honor the preamble: PLEASE READ THIS SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT LICENSE CAREFULLY BEFORE DOWNLOADING THIS SOFTWARE. BY DOWNLOADING THIS SOFTWARE YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE, DO NOT DOWNLOAD. The questions is wether this kind of licenses is binding or just void. 2. Permitted Uses and Restrictions. This License allows you to copy, install and use the Apple Software on an unlimited number of computers under your direct control. You may modify and create derivative works of the Apple Software (Modified Software), however, you may not modify or create derivative works of the fonts provided by Apple (Fonts). You may distribute and sublicense such Modified Software The Fonts is clearly non-free. Can the package use fonts not provided by Apple? 6. Export Law Assurances. You may not use or otherwise export or reexport the Apple Software except as authorized by United States law and the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Apple Software was obtained. Doesn't this alone makes it non-free? I think we have discussed it several times what it means when licenses explicite referes to some laws which isn't DFSG-free. I think that it makes the license non-free, but I don't remember what we have agreed on. -- Peter -- Marcus Denker [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]:(0721)6649375 @work:(0721)6082749 Smalltalk is dangerous. It is a drug. My advice to you would be don't try it; it could ruin your life. -- Andy Bower
Re: Python 1.6 license DFSG free ?
I'd be interested to know what this means: 7. This License Agreement shall be governed by and interpreted in all respects by the law of the State of Virginia, excluding conflict of law provisions. If someone in Albania, say, is violating the licence, and CNRI wants to sue them in Albania, in an Albanian court, what does it mean for Virginia law to apply? Edmund
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: Please let me know what you think. - Forwarded message from Dave Cinege [EMAIL PROTECTED] - 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: First of all I see this as a moot point, as an illigal action is illegal. By saying that you behave illegal, when you do something illegal is no discrimination in my eyes but should be seen as only beeing a reiminder. (But I am not a lawyer at all). The licence is in my eyes not very well designed, I do not know, but it may be possible for 19 people to copy less than 1000 lines to a gpl-program and than copying all these lines together to an gpl-version of analog. Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link
Re: GPL question
Samuel Hocevar [EMAIL PROTECTED]: However, if your printing server component is a library and is GPLed, then every work linked to it has to be GPLed (or have an even less restrictive license). Also, is it relevant that at the moment the whole app. comes on a single CD? This is considered mere aggregation of software by the GPL, and thus the different parts of the work do not need to have the same license, even if there is one GPLed app there. Sorry if this is off-topic, but I'm just checking that I understand the GPL properly. As I understand it, it is relevant that the whole application comes on a single CD, because this is what prevents you from linking a non-GPL program with a GPL library. If you distribute a CD with a GPL library, and a separate CD with a non-GPL program as a separate work, and someone gets both CDs and links the program with the library, then the GPL has been obeyed, because: (i) the GPL library is being distributed according to the GPL; (ii) the non-GPL program doesn't contain any code from the library and is therefore not a derivative work under copyright law; (iii) the GPL only restricts copying, distribution and modification; it does not and could not restrict linking. So my impression is that the GPL is basically equivalent to the LGPL modulo (a significant amount of) inconvenience. If this is wrong, I would like to know why. If it's off-topic, is there another list I could use? Edmund
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
Scripsit Brian Behlendorf [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: I don't follow; maybe I'm just being dense, but section 1 seems like a no-op to me, It is not. Consider this scenario: A is a citizen of [insert your favorite evil oppresive police state]. He happens to use this software to speek his mind against the government, is persecuted by the authorities but escapes narrowly to the free world. All is well, or not? No, because he not only broke the local laws, he also broke the license of the software. Then the author of the software might sue A for breach of contract, even though A is outside of the jurisdiction of the local laws that he broke originally. That certainly discriminates against fields of endeavor, namely against any field of endeavor that is illegal anywhere. a cover-your-ass by the attorney who wrote it to cover the case where a jurisdiction may decide that another clause in the license contradicts some law somewhere, thus rendering the license void That is a possible explanation of what they *thought* they wrote, but is not what they *actually* wrote. A much better wording would be: | Licensee takes note that local laws may limit his exercise of the | rights granted by this License Agreement. Licensor does not | encourage the any activities that are against applicable local | law, and assumes no responsibility for any consequence of such | actions. This would be DFSG-free. -- Henning MakholmManden med det store pindsvin er kommet vel ombord i den grønne dobbeltdækker.
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
Scripsit Joey Hess [EMAIL PROTECTED] We've had arguments over export regulations, and the general consensus is that they aren't DFSG free, so this isn't either. I don't follow. This is not an export restriction. No, but the problem with export restriction clauses is not that they concern export laws specifically. The problem is that such a clause essentially incorporates the entire applicable body of laws into the license terms by reference. Thus any silly and unjust rules found in a law anywhere is *a part of the license* as far as at least some potential Debian users are concerned. The clause is not a no-op. If I cross the street when the red light is on (which has happened), it does matter quite a lot to me whether I get fined DKR 500, or I get fined DKR 500 and then sued for DKR 50.000 because I broke the contract that otherwise allowed me to distribute this software to 100 of my friends. -- Henning Makholm I consider the presence of the universe to be a miracle. The universe and everything in it. Can you deny it?
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 11:58:59PM -0700, Joey Hess wrote: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. Hmm.. and what about actions which are illegal even though the law has no jurisdiction? [For example, consider diplomatic immunity -- I believe that there are other examples, but I'm too lame to think of them right now.] -- Raul
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
begin Bernhard R. Link quotation of Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 11:34:05AM +0200: First of all I see this as a moot point, as an illigal action is illegal. By saying that you behave illegal, when you do something illegal is no discrimination in my eyes but should be seen as only beeing a reiminder. (But I am not a lawyer at all). First of all, crime, especially organized crime, is a Field of Endeavor. Second, some people who are considered criminals in one country are freedom fighters in another country. Third, I can understand why there shouldn't be no breaking the law clauses in free software licenses. Let's say that example.com installs a new free accounting system, with a no breaking the law clause in its license, at tremendous cost in hardware and consulting time. Due to human error, they issue paychecks to all their employees for less than minimum wage. They correct the error, make up the missed pay, and pay a fine -- but in the meantime they have lost the license to their accounting system, and can no longer stay in business. Not even proprietary software licenses include a clause like this, since companies inadvertently break the law all the time. Licenses that require legally perfect behavior in an imperfect society with complex laws are unrealistic and dangerous. -- Don MartiThis email brought to you [EMAIL PROTECTED] by the number 67 and the http://zgp.org/~dmarti/ operator XOR. whois DM683 Software patent reform now: http://burnallgifs.org/
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On 13 Sep 2000, Henning Makholm wrote: It is not. Consider this scenario: the author of the software might sue A for breach of contract, even though A is outside of the jurisdiction of the local laws that he broke originally. I think this scenario leads to an very gray area. Where does the author want to sue him? As I understand law, A broke only the copyright laws of his evil country. (As you said before: International agreements are not law but are enforced as local laws folliwong this international standards) (Ecxept when the USA are involved in it, as they asume the whole planet as their territority). That is a possible explanation of what they *thought* they wrote, but is not what they *actually* wrote. A much better wording would be: | Licensee takes note that local laws may limit his exercise of the | rights granted by this License Agreement. Licensor does not | encourage the any activities that are against applicable local | law, and assumes no responsibility for any consequence of such | actions. I agree such a wording be much more better, but I not agree that the other is non-free. (But IANL..) Anyone tried to ask the author to make it clearer, so that there is no need for an flame-war? Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link (Falls ich auf Mails and diese Mailaddresse nicht mehr antworte, bitte stattdessen an [EMAIL PROTECTED] verschicken.)
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Don Marti wrote: First of all, crime, especially organized crime, is a Field of Endeavor. Second, some people who are considered criminals in one country are freedom fighters in another country. I do not think that theese are so valid points. Third, [..] Not even proprietary software licenses include a clause like this, since companies inadvertently break the law all the time. Licenses that require legally perfect behavior in an imperfect society with complex laws are unrealistic and dangerous. But this is an arguement, that make me change my opinion. Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
Scripsit Bernhard R. Link [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 13 Sep 2000, Henning Makholm wrote: It is not. Consider this scenario: the author of the software might sue A for breach of contract, even though A is outside of the jurisdiction of the local laws that he broke originally. I think this scenario leads to an very gray area. Where does the author want to sue him? Perhaps because the author's former boyfriend left her in favor of A. Perhaps because the author, in his professional life, trades with [IEFEOPS] and has discreetly be informed that he may lose a contract if he lets A walk around unpunished. Perhaps the author and A are neighbours and got into war about playing loud music late at night? It is fine to judge licenses from a they're probably nice people, and why would they want to sue position when judging them for one's own use. But when we're judging licenses on behalf of all Debian users, we have to set higher standards. Otherwise we could just as well accept This is public domain and must not be sold pseudo-licenses -- for the vast majority of authors of such programs would never dream of suing somebody just because they make Debian CDs and sell them at whatever price the market will sustain (which is not much). -- Henning Makholm We will discuss your youth another time.
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 06:14:59PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Don Marti wrote: First of all, crime, especially organized crime, is a Field of Endeavor. Second, some people who are considered criminals in one country are freedom fighters in another country. I do not think that theese are so valid points. The DFSG is designed to be an objective standard. This clause in particular is designed so people don't subjectively chose who they like and who they don't. A lot of people have put in clauses in their licenses against the 'evil' people - military, racists, genetic researchers, criminals, etc. Allowing one clause and not another weakens the objectivity of the DFSG, and judging based on subjective instead of objective reasons also weakens the DFSG. Anyway, if this is acceptable, then can someone put in a clause about breaking God's law invalidates the license? I think pretty much all the arguments in this thread for the clause would also apply to such a clause. -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http/ftp: dvdeug.dhis.org And crawling, on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in space, lost in time, and meaning. -- RHPS
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 06:11:15PM +0200, Bernhard R. Link wrote: I think this scenario leads to an very gray area. Where does the author want to sue him? As I understand law, A broke only the copyright laws of his evil country. (As you said before: International agreements are not law but are enforced as local laws folliwong this international standards) (Ecxept when the USA are involved in it, as they asume the whole planet as their territority). Nope. [1] The clause doesn't restrict itself to only copyright laws nor even to only good laws. [2] The clause does explicitly mention international law and even though that might not be recognized as law at ever locale, there is a body of work known as international law. -- Raul
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: Please let me know what you think. I think we have had this debate before :} I don't remember what the final result was, but most agreed that it is silly to place restrictions on a license agreement that are already implied by local law, as they are really beyond the scope of licensing. Who is going to be prevented from using software by a license agreement, that is already unconcerned with the law? It certainly looks as if the intent of this clause is to prevent the software author from being held liable of an end user uses it for some illegal purpose. But I don't think that would be likely, anyway, even with the modern legal climate. My particular perspective is that it *should* not make a package DFSG-unfree. Since the software cannot be used in the prohibited manner anyway, no actual freedom is restricted.
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, David Starner wrote: The DFSG is designed to be an objective standard. Not really, it's way too broad for that. If it were completely objective there'd be no debate about whether a given license violated it or not. Anyway, if this is acceptable, then can someone put in a clause about breaking God's law invalidates the license? I think pretty much all the arguments in this thread for the clause would also apply to such a clause. No, because copyright law is something that's enforced by a jurisdiction, that same jurisdiction (presumably, though the license was unclear about this) whose other laws the license is mandating you follow. Copyright law is not enforced by God. Brian
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 12:07:22PM -0700, Brian Behlendorf wrote: On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, David Starner wrote: The DFSG is designed to be an objective standard. Not really, it's way too broad for that. If it were completely objective there'd be no debate about whether a given license violated it or not. There will always be fuzzy lines and misinterpretations. The real world is not math. But the DFSG was designed so that someone could take a license and see whether Debian will accept it as free, without polling the Debian developers. I think that's a good license should come into it little, if at all. Frankly, even if it were completely objective, there would still be debate. I've seen quite a few rephrased MIT licenses cross debian-legal, with people wondering whether they were DFSG free, despite the unambiguity. Anyway, if this is acceptable, then can someone put in a clause about breaking God's law invalidates the license? I think pretty much all the arguments in this thread for the clause would also apply to such a clause. No, because copyright law is something that's enforced by a jurisdiction, that same jurisdiction (presumably, though the license was unclear about this) whose other laws the license is mandating you follow. Actually, no. Copyright law would be federal (and internation) jurisdiction, whereas the license forces you to follow local laws too. So this license could force a federal judge to rule on local laws. Ugly. I don't understand how this would apply, anyway. Copyright law is not enforced by God. So? God's law is still something you have to follow anyway, so including it in the license is a no-op (or so some have argued.) -- David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http/ftp: dvdeug.dhis.org And crawling, on the planet's face, some insects called the human race. Lost in space, lost in time, and meaning. -- RHPS
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
This has always been a stone in my craw: why should a keep it legal clause make it non DFSG free? Contracts (licensing agreements) may not cover illegal actions: a contract to perform an arson is null and void regardless of the wording of the contract. So logically, a contract that has a keep it legal clause is simply making explicit what is already implicit in most every jurisdiction: the common law idea that illegal actions void contracts. Logically, if a keep it legal clause makes a license non DFSG free, under common law NO license is DFSG free, since all contracts are voided once the law is broken. In Henning's hypothetical, if the free country that the person escaped to was a common law nation, the license was voided during the illegal act, so they're up for copyright infringement no matter what (whether the copyright holders know this or would do anything about this is another matter). This is one of the few places where the DFSG fails the sanity test, and the worst part about it is that there is nothing explicitly in the DFSG that is the offender, just an interpretation. Either the DFSG is overbroad or we should really do a stricter parsing of the DFSG. On 13 Sep 2000, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Brian Behlendorf [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: I don't follow; maybe I'm just being dense, but section 1 seems like a no-op to me, It is not. Consider this scenario: A is a citizen of [insert your favorite evil oppresive police state]. He happens to use this software to speek his mind against the government, is persecuted by the authorities but escapes narrowly to the free world. All is well, or not? No, because he not only broke the local laws, he also broke the license of the software. Then the author of the software might sue A for breach of contract, even though A is outside of the jurisdiction of the local laws that he broke originally. That certainly discriminates against fields of endeavor, namely against any field of endeavor that is illegal anywhere. a cover-your-ass by the attorney who wrote it to cover the case where a jurisdiction may decide that another clause in the license contradicts some law somewhere, thus rendering the license void That is a possible explanation of what they *thought* they wrote, but is not what they *actually* wrote. A much better wording would be: | Licensee takes note that local laws may limit his exercise of the | rights granted by this License Agreement. Licensor does not | encourage the any activities that are against applicable local | law, and assumes no responsibility for any consequence of such | actions. This would be DFSG-free. -- You have paid nothing for the preceding, therefore it's worth every penny you've paid for it: if you did pay for it, might I remind you of the immortal words of Phineas Taylor Barnum regarding fools and money? Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 02:10:52PM -0600, John Galt wrote: This has always been a stone in my craw: why should a keep it legal clause make it non DFSG free? Keep it legal is not the clause being discussed. Instead, it's 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this license. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. Now, the question is: is this clause meaningless, or is it not? If it doesn't really mean anything, it should just be taken out of the license. Meaningless verbiage doesn't help anyone. But I don't think we are ever safe to assume that the language of a copyright license is meaningless. So that means we need to look at the cases where it has meaning. The cases where this clause would have meaning are cases where jurisprudence is ambiguous. Where local or international laws are acknowledged to exist, but would not ordinarily apply. -- Raul
RE: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
IMHO the problems with legality clauses in contracts can be summarized in several points: (Disclaimer - this isn't legal advice, get yer own durn lawyer, yadda yadda yadda. See below.) 1. Not all countries adhere to the common law (mostly just the UK its former colonies, like US, Canada, Australia, etc.). I do not know enough about civil law jurisdictions to make a definitive statement about their contract laws. But I would guess the voidness or voidability of a contract on grounds of illegality or impossibility cannot be taken for granted in all such jurisdictions. Note also the distinction between void and voidable - void is always unenforceable, whereas voidable is binding on both parties until one takes legal action to void it - jurisdictions might vary on which applies under what circumstances. Then there are the equitable doctrines like estoppel, laches and unclean hands which might also overturn perfectly legal contracts 2. Most of these clauses do not mention a specific jurisdiction's laws - thus they could be construed as void for vagueness (and if you don't have a severability clause - then the whole contract could be voided). Alternately, those that do invoke a specific jurisdiction's laws, could be judged as inapplicable or unenforceable in another jurisdiction's courts. Do you really think (for example) China, Iraq or Libya cares how a Virginia state court would interpret UCITA (assuming they even care about UCITA at all)? 3. Choice of law and choice of venue often get confused in these clauses (I believe another poster in the thread already covered this fairly well). Basically - choice of venue is hazardous at best. Choice of law should be what we are discussing here. 4. There has also been some discussion about the differences (if any) between contracts and licenses in past threads. I would only add that most free as in beer licenses could conceivably be attacked under a lack of consideration theory (what does the author get in return for your use of the code? egoboo isn't a currency) - basically rendering the code as no more than a gift, or entering the public domain. Of course, lack of consideration is a pretty rare difficult defense nowadays in the U.S., but again, other jurisdictions might vary 5. Even if everything you say is correct, then basically such clauses are superflous, since local laws, treaties, etc. will already govern the contract. Excess verbiage in a contract is usually to be avoided (unless you are the lawyer getting paid by the hour or the word ;-P ). BTW, IWALBIGIU (I was a lawyer but I gave it up). Currently on inactive status - State Bar of Texas. (Yes it was voluntary, not for disciplinary reasons or anything). Not Board Certified by the Texas State Board of Legal Specialization. (They made me say that.) Caveat lector. ;-) -- Eric R. Sherrill, WF Software Systems Engineer Texas Instruments HFAB1 Automation Systems Stafford, TX 77477-3006 -Original Message- From: John Galt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 3:11 PM To: Henning Makholm Cc: Brian Behlendorf; Joey Hess; debian-legal@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG This has always been a stone in my craw: why should a keep it legal clause make it non DFSG free? Contracts (licensing agreements) may not cover illegal actions: a contract to perform an arson is null and void regardless of the wording of the contract. So logically, a contract that has a keep it legal clause is simply making explicit what is already implicit in most every jurisdiction: the common law idea that illegal actions void contracts. Logically, if a keep it legal clause makes a license non DFSG free, under common law NO license is DFSG free, since all contracts are voided once the law is broken. In Henning's hypothetical, if the free country that the person escaped to was a common law nation, the license was voided during the illegal act, so they're up for copyright infringement no matter what (whether the copyright holders know this or would do anything about this is another matter). This is one of the few places where the DFSG fails the sanity test, and the worst part about it is that there is nothing explicitly in the DFSG that is the offender, just an interpretation. Either the DFSG is overbroad or we should really do a stricter parsing of the DFSG. On 13 Sep 2000, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Brian Behlendorf [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. This provision of the licence blatently violates section 6 of the DFSG which states: I don't follow; maybe I'm just being dense, but section 1 seems like a no-op to me, It is not. Consider this scenario: A is a citizen of [insert your favorite evil oppresive police state]. He
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
By my argument, it's redundant, not meaningless. The action which is illegal voids the contract, both in common law and explicitly by this particular contract clause. Basically, it all boils down to: where this contract fails, ALL contracts fail, and if this is not the case, the contract is unenforcable since the rule of common law doesn't exist for this contract to be binding under. As for Raul's comment about if the comment is meaningless, it should be taken out, the same logic works if you s/meaningless/redundant/, but if restating common law makes a license non-free, then it should be explicitly stated in the DFSG. This comes back to my point about the DFSG either being overbroad or not parsed explicitly. If the DFSG is read against the explicit terms of the license, shouldn't it be read explicitly in its own right? Since the DFSG has no explicit demand that a license not refer to the legality/illegality of the licensee's actions, logically, the same explicit reading that's being done to the license in question, if it were applied to the DFSG, should read this license as DFSG free. On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Raul Miller wrote: On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 02:10:52PM -0600, John Galt wrote: This has always been a stone in my craw: why should a keep it legal clause make it non DFSG free? Keep it legal is not the clause being discussed. Instead, it's 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this license. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. Now, the question is: is this clause meaningless, or is it not? If it doesn't really mean anything, it should just be taken out of the license. Meaningless verbiage doesn't help anyone. But I don't think we are ever safe to assume that the language of a copyright license is meaningless. So that means we need to look at the cases where it has meaning. The cases where this clause would have meaning are cases where jurisprudence is ambiguous. Where local or international laws are acknowledged to exist, but would not ordinarily apply. -- Galt's sci-fi paradox: Stormtroopers versus Redshirts to the death. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!
Re: FWD: Analog licence violates DFSG
On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Joey Hess wrote: 1.Any action which is illegal under international or local law is forbidden by this licence. Any such action is the sole responsibility of the person committing the action. I jaywalked yesterday in CA, so did I now break the licence agreement? I jaywalked yesterday to use the software on the other side of the road, did I break the license? By my understanding of it, I did. Steve -- If Microsoft doesn't trust Windows(TM), why should you? http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q80/5/20.ASP
