Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, sure; I don't think irrelevant boilerplate is a *good* thing to have in licenses, however. Sure, but the DFSG is not about a license being good or bad. There are plenty of bad licenses which are free. Only for a strange definition of free (such that some might accuse you of wanting to put non-free things into main). The DFSG are one metric for license goodness. I think they are meant to separate what Only in your mind. The DFSG is debian's metric for *freedom*. are (mostly) intuitively good licenses from what are (mostly) intuitively bad licenses, calling the former free and the latter non-free. How many licenses can you think of that are widely considered DFSG-free but bad? I can only think of the Artistic TeX-like patch-only licenses are the most classical example. And I consider advertisement clauses a very bad idea too. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How do you distinguish a requirement that the user abide by some remote court's process from a requirement that the user pet a cat, volunteer for some personally distasteful organization, etc? Are those DFSG-free requirements? At least, these are obvious limitation on *using* the program (you cannot use it unless you actively do something). They are gratuitous limitations on things outside of the freedoms that DFSG aims to guarantee, and choice of venue is no different. Why does the actively do something part matter at all? Would a license that prohibits users from doing those things be free, since that is not an active requirement? It looks very active to me, but maybe I did not choose the right word. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, sure; I don't think irrelevant boilerplate is a *good* thing to have in licenses, however. Sure, but the DFSG is not about a license being good or bad. There are plenty of bad licenses which are free. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, sure; I don't think irrelevant boilerplate is a *good* thing to have in licenses, however. Sure, but the DFSG is not about a license being good or bad. There are plenty of bad licenses which are free. Only for a strange definition of free (such that some might accuse you of wanting to put non-free things into main). The DFSG are one metric for license goodness. I think they are meant to separate what are (mostly) intuitively good licenses from what are (mostly) intuitively bad licenses, calling the former free and the latter non-free. How many licenses can you think of that are widely considered DFSG-free but bad? I can only think of the Artistic License, which is bad mostly because of vagueness, and it has been revised by its author. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marco d'Itri writes: Sure, but the DFSG is not about a license being good or bad. There are plenty of bad licenses which are free. Only for a strange definition of free (such that some might accuse you of wanting to put non-free things into main). Licenses with patch clauses are widely considered bad even though they are explicitly free according to the DFSG. -- Henning Makholm ... not one has been remembered from the time when the author studied freshman physics. Quite the contrary: he merely remembers that such and such is true, and to explain it he invents a demonstration at the moment it is needed. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Henning Makholm writes: Scripsit Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] Marco d'Itri writes: Sure, but the DFSG is not about a license being good or bad. There are plenty of bad licenses which are free. Only for a strange definition of free (such that some might accuse you of wanting to put non-free things into main). Licenses with patch clauses are widely considered bad even though they are explicitly free according to the DFSG. Do you have any particular licenses in mind? I only have about 1450 packages installed on my system, but none of them seem[1] to have that kind of license. The closest are a few packages with files that are (in the case of apt, once were) dual licensed under the QPL and GPL. The claim was that there *are* plenty of bad licenses, which implies actual rather than theoretical existence or use. Michael Poole [1]- Judging just by the output of grep -i '(patch|change)' */copyright from /usr/share/doc, and checking context for files that looked like they might be a patch clause. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 19:34:25 -0700 Steve Langasek wrote: On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 07:59:14PM -0400, Jennifer Brown wrote: [...] Also please forgive my ignorance but can someone give me a primer on the term free as it relates to this discussion. Someone once told me that free does not necessarily mean devoid of cost and/or risk. The shared definition of free used here is the one elaborated at http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines. If it wasn't already obvious, most traffic on this list is the result of disagreements over the application of these guidelines to corner cases. ;) Jenifer, please also consider reading http://www.debian.org/intro/free to have a more general introduction to the topic... -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgp4uqWtJoIiw.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
--- On Mon 09/19, Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jenifer, please also consider reading http://www.debian.org/intro/free to have a more general introduction to the topic... PERFECT! Thanks Jenn ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
I think your points make a lot of sense, but you've made them citing case law valid in a few specific jurisdictions. A significant element of the concern that's been expressed has had to do with international law. In other words, while your points can diffuse some of the fear about this issue, I'm wishing we could have a broader perspective on it. Thanks, -- Raul
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit Jennifer Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] In conclusion it seems that just because a venue/forum selection clause exists does not in-and-of-itself mean that it will hold up in court. Because there are many other factors (like minimum contacts, Long-Arm Statutes, foreseeability, superseding legislative laws, service of process, precedent within the Federal circuit, etc) that are considered when deciding if venue (forum clause or no) is \223fair and reasonable.\224 I don't think the ill effects of a choice-of-venue clause are defused simply because it _may_ not hold up in court. As long as there is any risk that it _will_ make a difference in court, it constitutes a burden for the licensee and should be considered non-free. -- Henning Makholm The burning swoosh shall be our emblem, and we shall laugh in the face of trademark lawyers. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 10:28:23PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: I fully understand that _may_ and _shall_ are different terms however, and I will check on this, but I am pretty sure _may_ in this instance is indicating _required._ Again I need to confer with someone to see if licensing agreements fall outside of these specialized rules, but I don_t think they strictly do. In conclusion it seems that just because a venue/forum selection clause exists does not in-and-of-itself mean that it will hold up in court. But it could hold up, couldn't it? If this is the case, we must stay on the safe side and assume it will... Bearing in mind also that people don't generally put clauses in their licenses which they believe *can't* be used to their advantage. Surely, the best test of whether the choice of venue clause is inert is whether the copyright holder is willing to drop the clause. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
From: Steve Langasek [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bearing in mind also that people don't generally put clauses in their licenses which they believe *can't* be used to their advantage. As I understand it choice of venue clauses are standard boiler plate language in agreements regardless of whether or not the clause has any known validity. Also please forgive my ignorance but can someone give me a primer on the term free as it relates to this discussion. Someone once told me that free does not necessarily mean devoid of cost and/or risk. Thanks Jenn ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 07:59:14PM -0400, Jennifer Brown wrote: From: Steve Langasek [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bearing in mind also that people don't generally put clauses in their licenses which they believe *can't* be used to their advantage. As I understand it choice of venue clauses are standard boiler plate language in agreements regardless of whether or not the clause has any known validity. Yes, sure; I don't think irrelevant boilerplate is a *good* thing to have in licenses, however. Also please forgive my ignorance but can someone give me a primer on the term free as it relates to this discussion. Someone once told me that free does not necessarily mean devoid of cost and/or risk. The shared definition of free used here is the one elaborated at http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines. If it wasn't already obvious, most traffic on this list is the result of disagreements over the application of these guidelines to corner cases. ;) -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
From: Steve Langasek [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes, sure; I don't think irrelevant boilerplate is a *good* thing to have in licenses, however. I suppose a lawyer would argue what is irrelevant at the moment may be very relevant at a later time...good or ill it is safer to hedge than not, unless, of course, you are the party without any bargaining power... If it wasn't already obvious, most traffic on this list is the result of disagreements over the application of these guidelines to corner cases. ;) It makes for a lively, interesting list Thanks for the link...trying to navigate all the information out there is sometimes overwhelming Jenn ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? Because it's not obviously a cost. I have already explained why it *is* a cost. Choice of venue is a And many people explained why the do not believe it is, at least in the meaning used by the DFSG. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Basically, the clincher for me is that our mirrors can't simply carry the software we distribute without coming under some fair degree of risk due to this issue. This would not be enforceable anyway, at least in sane jurisdictions. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Basically, the clincher for me is that our mirrors can't simply carry the software we distribute without coming under some fair degree of risk due to this issue. This would not be enforceable anyway, at least in sane jurisdictions. Why would it not be enforceable? In the USA, choice of venue clauses are more likely to be upheld than struck down (The Bremen v. Zapata Off-Shore Co., 407 U.S. 1 (1972): such clauses are prima facie valid, and Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc v. Shute, 499 U.S. 585, 593 (1991) where cookie-cutter choice of venue was upheld). Even if you think the US is an insane jurisdiction, I think it is unreasonable and contrary to patent-related precedent to ignore its legal situation. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? Because it's not obviously a cost. I have already explained why it *is* a cost. Choice of venue is a And many people explained why the do not believe it is, at least in the meaning used by the DFSG. How do you distinguish a requirement that the user abide by some remote court's process from a requirement that the user pet a cat, volunteer for some personally distasteful organization, etc? Are those DFSG-free requirements? Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whether the lawsuit is frivolous or not is totally irrelevant. What is relevant is that the user is required to give up a legal protection he normally has -- for no better reason than the convenience of the copyright holder to sue users. The cost is particularly aggravated by the fact that we have already seen frivolous claims on the part of copyright owners. We've seen frivolous suits against software alleging patent infringement. Since the only way we can protect our users from these is to stop distributing software, should we do so? -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Matthew Garrett writes: Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whether the lawsuit is frivolous or not is totally irrelevant. What is relevant is that the user is required to give up a legal protection he normally has -- for no better reason than the convenience of the copyright holder to sue users. The cost is particularly aggravated by the fact that we have already seen frivolous claims on the part of copyright owners. We've seen frivolous suits against software alleging patent infringement. Since the only way we can protect our users from these is to stop distributing software, should we do so? I do not propose we do anything to stop frivolous lawsuits. I suggest you reread the paragraph you quoted instead of just the last sentence. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett writes: We've seen frivolous suits against software alleging patent infringement. Since the only way we can protect our users from these is to stop distributing software, should we do so? I do not propose we do anything to stop frivolous lawsuits. I suggest you reread the paragraph you quoted instead of just the last sentence. But downloading a piece of software from Debian opens me up to the possibility of frivolous lawsuits from the copyright holder, something that did not occur before. How is that not a cost? -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Matthew Garrett writes: Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett writes: We've seen frivolous suits against software alleging patent infringement. Since the only way we can protect our users from these is to stop distributing software, should we do so? I do not propose we do anything to stop frivolous lawsuits. I suggest you reread the paragraph you quoted instead of just the last sentence. But downloading a piece of software from Debian opens me up to the possibility of frivolous lawsuits from the copyright holder, something that did not occur before. How is that not a cost? Why did it not exist before? Your assumption seems to be a sociopathic copyright owner. I think that is an inappropriate assumption, but sociopaths and frivolous lawsuits are seldom rational. For example, a certain Unix software company has threatened to sue Linux users who never used System V Unix, on the basis that they violated System V Unix copyrights. Debian's choice (in quotes since I think no one would seriously propose it) to not distribute System V Unix did nothing to address such threats. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Matthew Garrett writes: But downloading a piece of software from Debian opens me up to the possibility of frivolous lawsuits from the copyright holder, something that did not occur before. How is that not a cost? Why did it not exist before? Your assumption seems to be a sociopathic copyright owner. I think that is an inappropriate assumption, but sociopaths and frivolous lawsuits are seldom rational. Exactly. It's not a cost because exactly the same thing could happen anyway. The same is true of choice of venue clauses - the bringer of the suit could claim that their local venue had jurisdiction over me, even if this isn't actually the case. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Basically, the clincher for me is that our mirrors can't simply carry the software we distribute without coming under some fair degree of risk due to this issue. This would not be enforceable anyway, at least in sane jurisdictions. Why would it not be enforceable? In the USA, choice of venue clauses Because consent by the mirror operator is even less dubious than with users and a normal shrink wrap license. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How do you distinguish a requirement that the user abide by some remote court's process from a requirement that the user pet a cat, volunteer for some personally distasteful organization, etc? Are those DFSG-free requirements? At least, these are obvious limitation on *using* the program (you cannot use it unless you actively do something). -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Exactly. It's not a cost because exactly the same thing could happen anyway. The same is true of choice of venue clauses - the bringer of the suit could claim that their local venue had jurisdiction over me, even if this isn't actually the case. The difference is that if you have accepted a choice-of-venue license, the sociopath can present his local venue with proof that it has jurisdisction. That makes a difference, however much you try to deny it. -- Henning Makholm Al lykken er i ét ord: Overvægtig!
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sat, Sep 17, 2005 at 07:31:39PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Exactly. It's not a cost because exactly the same thing could happen anyway. The same is true of choice of venue clauses - the bringer of the suit could claim that their local venue had jurisdiction over me, even if this isn't actually the case. The difference is that if you have accepted a choice-of-venue license, the sociopath can present his local venue with proof that it has jurisdisction. That makes a difference, however much you try to deny it. If it's a frivolous case, it makes no difference. You'll have to turn up to either: (a) debunk the claim that there is jurisdiction, or (b) debunk the frivolous claim which will both impose the same cost. (Please don't Cc me.) -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sat, Sep 17, 2005 at 07:31:39PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: The difference is that if you have accepted a choice-of-venue license, the sociopath can present his local venue with proof that it has jurisdisction. That makes a difference, however much you try to deny it. If it's a frivolous case, it makes no difference. You'll have to turn up to either: (a) debunk the claim that there is jurisdiction, or I think that most sane courts (I assume the nominated venue is sane) will of its own accord verify that it has jurisdiction before it schedules a case. If there is no evidence for jurisdiction in the case, the defendant will never even hear of the suit. -- Henning Makholm Man vælger jo selv sine forbilleder.
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Basically, the clincher for me is that our mirrors can't simply carry the software we distribute without coming under some fair degree of risk due to this issue. This would not be enforceable anyway, at least in sane jurisdictions. Why would it not be enforceable? In the USA, choice of venue clauses Because consent by the mirror operator is even less dubious than with users and a normal shrink wrap license. I am going to assume you meant consent by the mirror operator is *more* dubious than with users, but consent can be assumed when the mirror operator (or user) exercises rights that are only granted by the license. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How do you distinguish a requirement that the user abide by some remote court's process from a requirement that the user pet a cat, volunteer for some personally distasteful organization, etc? Are those DFSG-free requirements? At least, these are obvious limitation on *using* the program (you cannot use it unless you actively do something). They are gratuitous limitations on things outside of the freedoms that DFSG aims to guarantee, and choice of venue is no different. Why does the actively do something part matter at all? Would a license that prohibits users from doing those things be free, since that is not an active requirement? Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
I am new to this list, I arrived here by being interested in the Debian Women Project, so please forgive me if I am jumping in where my opinion is not wanted and if I am too long winded. I have been trying to follow the recent conversation regarding choice of venue (aka forum selection clause) and I have a few thoughts... We all seem to know that with respect to jurisdiction there are three rungs one must successfully clime to get into a court: 1) subject matter jurisdiction 2) personal jurisdiction (in personum/in rem) 3) venue (which really falls under Per Jur) From what I understand courts will uphold venue provisions in the absence of unfairness under Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc, v. Shute (and other case law like Neirbo, etc) 1) if the defendant has purposefully waived their personal privilege of venue by agreeing to the terms set forth by another party 2) if the defendant does not raise the question of venue before arguing the merits of the case `*(note courts understand that no real bargaining power exists for one party if the other states definite take-them-as-you-find-them-terms of use) So it might be reasonable to infer that forum selection with respect to patent, trademark, copyright claim cases would fall under FRCP 12 (b) (g) (h) and USC 28 sec. 1391. I am going to do some thinking on the licensing side of this as I am NOT certain if special licensing clauses exist with respect to particular venue clauses but I am willing to hedge that they do. I do know that in the Oracle case AC Controls Co. Inc. v. Pomeroy Computer Resources, Inc the court noted that Under 28 U.S.C. § 1406(a), the presence of a forum selection clause does not, in and of itself, make venue [a venue other than the one in the agreement] improper. The court went on to note that, and here is the biggie folks, the presumption of [validity] that forum selection . . . provisions enjoy is not absolute, [rather such provisions] may be overcome by a clear showing that they are 'unreasonable under the circumstances.' Allen, 94 F.3d at 928 The fourth Circuit in the above, Allen, reasoned choice of venue provisions may be found unreasonable if (1) their formation was induced by fraud or overreaching; (2) the complaining party 'will for all practical purposes be deprived of his day in court's because of the grave inconvenience or unfairness of the selected forum; (3) the fundamental unfairness of the chosen law may deprive the plaintiff of a remedy; or (4) their enforcement would contravene a strong public policy of the forum state. The cites are as follows Allen, 94 F.3d at 928 (citing Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, 499 U.S. 585, 595, 113 L. Ed. 2d 622, 111 S. Ct. 1522 (1991) and The Bremen, 407 U.S. at 12-13). There was also mention of Federal Rules applying when considering forum selection. I believe it pertains to USC 28 where there are special rules that govern specialized cases like patent, trademark and copyright. These special venue rules limit 'where' claims arising from these specialized subjects (patent/copyright etc.) can be brought. Rule patent infringement claims may be brought in districts where 1) the defendant has his/her residence OR where the acts of infringement occurred AND 2) the defendant has an establish place of regularly conducted business *(note residence does not always mean domicile) I fully understand that may and shall are different terms however, and I will check on this, but I am pretty sure may in this instance is indicating required. Again I need to confer with someone to see if licensing agreements fall outside of these specialized rules, but I dont think they strictly do. In conclusion it seems that just because a venue/forum selection clause exists does not in-and-of-itself mean that it will hold up in court. Because there are many other factors (like minimum contacts, Long-Arm Statutes, foreseeability, superseding legislative laws, service of process, precedent within the Federal circuit, etc) that are considered when deciding if venue (forum clause or no) is fair and reasonable. I welcome questions/rants etc. Jennifer Also, I must mention that I am in law school and as such I am obligated to place this disclaimer on anything I post regarding legal matters: The information that I have presented here is not in any way intended to nor constitutes the practice of law or giving of legal advice, nor is it an offering of legal services, nor should the information presented here be relied on in any way. ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Thu, Sep 15, 2005 at 11:05:32PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 01:44:05AM +0300, George Danchev wrote: On Thursday 15 September 2005 23:53, Francesco Poli wrote: On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 19:11:03 -0400 David Nusinow wrote: Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. C'mon David! :-( We are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install Acrobat Reader if they choose. Consequently Acrobat Reader can be moved to main. This is nonsense... :-( Right ! Also count that mirror operators carring such software could find themselves in a baseless lawsuit adventure while being located or not in some exotic jurisdictions. If they manage to filter such crap somehow, then ftpmasters could serve as last resort being targeted for no good reasons. Do any of these choice of venue clauses impinge on simple redistribution? If so, I'd *definitely* be against those specific ones. If they don't relate to the simple redistribution that our mirror operators do, then I don't think this is an issue we have to worry about. Sure; the distribution rights are contingent on accepting the specified court's jurisdiction over the license agreement. This impinges simple redistribution. Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit David Nusinow [EMAIL PROTECTED] Do any of these choice of venue clauses impinge on simple redistribution? If so, I'd *definitely* be against those specific ones. Yes. The only thing that allows simple redistribution is the license, and you don't get the license without accepting the choice-of-venue clause. -- Henning Makholm Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? Because it's not obviously a cost. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? Because it's not obviously a cost. I have already explained why it *is* a cost. Choice of venue is a promise by the licensee to be bound by and to legal processes in the specified court. In the US, and probably in any other common law country, any promise like that -- even a conditional obligation, since litigation is uncertain -- is a thing of value under contract law. Copyleft licenses also require the licensee to make a promise, but that pertains directly to the licensed software (and I can imagine a number of software-related promises that would be non-DFSG-free). But when the cost is unrelated to the licensed software, I see no grounds to argue that the cost is DFSG-free. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Friday 16 September 2005 14:26, Marco d'Itri wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? Because it's not obviously a cost. Is it so difficult to guess the simple rule: Higher risks, higher costs. Unless you are todays's Alexsander Selkirk living on an uninhabited island enter the first Bank office and ask the simple rules of how they manage their rates of interest, if you have phone around their call their toll-free. If you can find any competent lawyer around also ask him / her to enlighten you about the risk/cost ratio. sorry, couldnt resist/ -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Michael Poole wrote: Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? Because it's not obviously a cost. I have already explained why it *is* a cost. Choice of venue is a promise by the licensee to be bound by and to legal processes in the specified court. In the US, and probably in any other common law country, any promise like that -- even a conditional obligation, since litigation is uncertain -- is a thing of value under contract law. Weird rhetorical question: What happens when the venue no longer exists? Natural man-made desasters, political changes, wars, etc all can do pretty mean things to chosen venues. cheers, dalibor topic -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Thu, Sep 15, 2005 at 11:08:23PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Thu, Sep 15, 2005 at 11:05:32PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: Do any of these choice of venue clauses impinge on simple redistribution? If so, I'd *definitely* be against those specific ones. If they don't relate to the simple redistribution that our mirror operators do, then I don't think this is an issue we have to worry about. Sure; the distribution rights are contingent on accepting the specified court's jurisdiction over the license agreement. This impinges simple redistribution. Ok, given this then I'll agree entirely that it's non-free, since it limits the freedom to redistribute the software. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 08:05:02AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? Because it's not obviously a cost. I have already explained why it *is* a cost. It's a potential cost, not an actual cost. I think the cost is much lower than you are making it out to be. If the lawsuit is truly frivolous (meant only for harassment), the only cost should be that of retaining a local attorney in the chosen venue to represent you. Appearing personally would probably not even be required. On the other hand, if the court decided that the complaint had merit, you would have to defend yourself anyway, regardless of the venue. The costs in travel time and airfare would likely amount to only a small portion of the total cost of defending yourself, as an attorney could represent you for most of the proceedings. As others have said before, this mostly boils down to a convenience factor. This clause makes the venue convenient for the copyright holder in matters of enforcement, as opposed to making it convenient for the (suspected) copyright violator. That's ok with me. --Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Adam McKenna writes: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 08:05:02AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Marco d'Itri writes: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is a license that requires micropayments in exchange for distribution rights free? If not, why is a cost measured in terms of legal risk imposed by the license more free than one measured in hundredths of a cent? Because it's not obviously a cost. I have already explained why it *is* a cost. It's a potential cost, not an actual cost. I think the cost is much lower than you are making it out to be. If the lawsuit is truly frivolous (meant only for harassment), the only cost should be that of retaining a local attorney in the chosen venue to represent you. Appearing personally would probably not even be required. Pet a cat if you see one. Ignore lawful orders from a superior officer if you are in the military. Allow the copyright holder to audit all your computer files for license violation if he demands it. These are all potential costs, not actual costs. Are any of those something you would accept in a license for Debian? Whether the lawsuit is frivolous or not is totally irrelevant. What is relevant is that the user is required to give up a legal protection he normally has -- for no better reason than the convenience of the copyright holder to sue users. The cost is particularly aggravated by the fact that we have already seen frivolous claims on the part of copyright owners. One well-publicized pending software case has already stretched for more than two years and tens of millions in legal fees. I think most of us believe that case is meritless and was brought solely to harass the defendant, yet it is certainly not just a question of the defendant hiring a lawyer to appear in court and explain how frivolous the claims are. The absolute costs in that case are orders of magnitude higher than what an individual litigant would expect to face, but the relative costs are orders of magnitude *lower* (as a fraction of discretionary budget). A corporation may think little of paying a lawyer $50,000 to argue a case until the plaintiff settles, and that cost is reasonably likely to be covered by the company's insurance, but few individuals would be able to do the same. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As others have said before, this mostly boils down to a convenience factor. This clause makes the venue convenient for the copyright holder in matters of enforcement, as opposed to making it convenient for the (suspected) copyright violator. That's ok with me. It makes it convenient for *one* copyright holder, maybe, depending whether the legal systems actually consider choice of venue clauses. It makes it inconvenient for users and debian-legal, needing to know local absurdities of Seaforth or whereever's court procedures. Does anyone know how Berlin's courts treat choice-of-venue clauses? By the way, are all choice-of-venue licences incompatible with each other, even CDDL and CDDL-star? -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 02:36:30PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Whether the lawsuit is frivolous or not is totally irrelevant. What is relevant is that the user is required to give up a legal protection he normally has -- for no better reason than the convenience of the copyright holder to sue users. The copyright holder can sue users (or even random people off the street, for that matter) whether he put a choice of venue clause in his license or not. The cost is particularly aggravated by the fact that we have already seen frivolous claims on the part of copyright owners. One well-publicized pending software case has already stretched for more than two years and tens of millions in legal fees. I think most of us believe that case is meritless and was brought solely to harass the defendant, yet it is certainly not just a question of the defendant hiring a lawyer to appear in court and explain how frivolous the claims are. Strawman. The only costs relevant to this discussion are costs that would be incurred as a result of the suit being in the copyright holders's venue, as opposed to the defendant's. The other costs would be the same, regardless of venue. A corporation may think little of paying a lawyer $50,000 to argue a case until the plaintiff settles, and that cost is reasonably likely to be covered by the company's insurance, but few individuals would be able to do the same. Unless you are considering only the monetary costs of defending yourself, this is really not relevant. A person defending himself must spend many hours of time preparing his defense, and many hours of time away from work to appear in court, at depositions, etc. This would be the case whether the venue was local or remote. Yes, there is a risk of a COV clause being used for unethical purposes, but IMO the risk is low enough that we need not consider every licenses with COV clause non-free. If we don't trust a particular vendor we can simply choose not to distribute their software. --Adam -- Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 07:27:35PM +, MJ Ray wrote: It makes it inconvenient for users and debian-legal, needing to know local absurdities of Seaforth or whereever's court procedures. By this reasoning, we should reject every package for which someone holds copyright, because it is inconvenient for us to know the local absurdities of copyright law of Seaforth or whereever. --Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Adam McKenna writes: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 02:36:30PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Whether the lawsuit is frivolous or not is totally irrelevant. What is relevant is that the user is required to give up a legal protection he normally has -- for no better reason than the convenience of the copyright holder to sue users. The copyright holder can sue users (or even random people off the street, for that matter) whether he put a choice of venue clause in his license or not. Please go back and read the rest of this thread, since your arguments were previously made and countered. You argue that since choice of venue is a small (or putatively reasonable) cost or form of discrimination, it can be ignored; the DFSG do not allow that. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 03:53:56PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Please go back and read the rest of this thread, since your arguments were previously made and countered. You argue that since choice of venue is a small (or putatively reasonable) cost or form of discrimination, it can be ignored; the DFSG do not allow that. It's not a cost, it's a risk. There are plenty of other risks that we take when we distribute software, that we consider acceptable. What makes this one unacceptable? As far as discrimination, it's only a form of discrimination insofar as the ability to sue discriminates against those for whom defending themselves will be a financial hardship. This is a problem with the law, not the license. --Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 03:53:56PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Adam McKenna writes: The copyright holder can sue users (or even random people off the street, for that matter) whether he put a choice of venue clause in his license or not. Please go back and read the rest of this thread, since your arguments were previously made and countered. You argue that since choice of venue is a small (or putatively reasonable) cost or form of discrimination, it can be ignored; the DFSG do not allow that. I don't feel that this argument was ever effectively countered. There's no explicit cost or discrimination such as send me five dollars or no black people can use this software. Because of this, the argument is hazy. You really need to justify it based on the basic freedoms that the DFSG is meant to guarantee. Note that not costing money isn't one of those freedoms. Nor is preventing travel or a prolonged stay. Justifying non-freeness in terms of basic freedoms has been done to my personal satisfaction in this case, but the fact that people constantly are falling back on the cost argument shows that the word hasn't gotten out. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 04:03:05PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: You really need to justify it based on the basic freedoms that the DFSG is meant to guarantee. Note that not costing money isn't one of those freedoms. Nor is preventing travel or a prolonged stay. Justifying non-freeness in terms of basic freedoms has been done to my personal satisfaction in this case, but the fact that people constantly are falling back on the cost argument shows that the word hasn't gotten out. I assume you are talking about this statement made by Steve Langasek: | Sure; the distribution rights are contingent on accepting the specified | court's jurisdiction over the license agreement. This impinges simple | redistribution. Please explain how this is different than accepting any random country's copyright laws when distributing copyrighted material created by a citizen of that country. --Adam -- Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Adam McKenna writes: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 03:53:56PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Please go back and read the rest of this thread, since your arguments were previously made and countered. You argue that since choice of venue is a small (or putatively reasonable) cost or form of discrimination, it can be ignored; the DFSG do not allow that. It's not a cost, it's a risk. There are plenty of other risks that we take when we distribute software, that we consider acceptable. What makes this one unacceptable? As you pointed out, choice of venue does not introduce the risk of being sued: it adds to the expected cost of being sued. How do you express choice of venue as a risk? As far as discrimination, it's only a form of discrimination insofar as the ability to sue discriminates against those for whom defending themselves will be a financial hardship. This is a problem with the law, not the license. Would a license that prohibits use by a fascist regime be acceptable, since what makes a regime fascist is its law rather than the license? Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 01:10:32PM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 04:03:05PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: You really need to justify it based on the basic freedoms that the DFSG is meant to guarantee. Note that not costing money isn't one of those freedoms. Nor is preventing travel or a prolonged stay. Justifying non-freeness in terms of basic freedoms has been done to my personal satisfaction in this case, but the fact that people constantly are falling back on the cost argument shows that the word hasn't gotten out. I assume you are talking about this statement made by Steve Langasek: | Sure; the distribution rights are contingent on accepting the specified | court's jurisdiction over the license agreement. This impinges simple | redistribution. Please explain how this is different than accepting any random country's copyright laws when distributing copyrighted material created by a citizen of that country. Basically, the clincher for me is that our mirrors can't simply carry the software we distribute without coming under some fair degree of risk due to this issue. True, it is only a single potentiality that they are actually sued for this. But I feel that the simple redistribution of software is a guaranteed right and should be totally unencumbered. When you modify or use the software, things can be a bit more complex (which is why we accept the GPL's restrictions on modification and distribution) but that's not the case here. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 04:18:00PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: As you pointed out, choice of venue does not introduce the risk of being sued: it adds to the expected cost of being sued. How do you express choice of venue as a risk? Its effect is a slightly higher risk than a license which does not contain a COV clause. I haven't seen anyone present a compelling argument as to why this difference in risk warrants a non-free label. As far as discrimination, it's only a form of discrimination insofar as the ability to sue discriminates against those for whom defending themselves will be a financial hardship. This is a problem with the law, not the license. Would a license that prohibits use by a fascist regime be acceptable, since what makes a regime fascist is its law rather than the license? Another strawman. The point is that being sued without a COV clause already has the potential to create a financial hardship on the defendant, due to an inherent discrimination present in the law. Since the COV clause does not substantially increase the costs of defending oneself, it cannot be construed as discrimination per se. --Adam -- Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 04:22:21PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: Basically, the clincher for me is that our mirrors can't simply carry the software we distribute without coming under some fair degree of risk due to this issue. What if the People's Republic of Kraplakistan made a law that all of its citizens were due royalties whenever someone distributed a work for which they held copyright, regardless of the license under which the works were released? What if the law went on to declare that Kraplakistan courts were granted jurisdiction over all distribution of such works? Would you advocate making all copyrighted work non-free, or would you advocate that we simply stop distributing material copyrighted by citizens of Kraplakistan? --Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 01:30:47PM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 04:22:21PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: Basically, the clincher for me is that our mirrors can't simply carry the software we distribute without coming under some fair degree of risk due to this issue. What if the People's Republic of Kraplakistan made a law that all of its citizens were due royalties whenever someone distributed a work for which they held copyright, regardless of the license under which the works were released? What if the law went on to declare that Kraplakistan courts were granted jurisdiction over all distribution of such works? Would you advocate making all copyrighted work non-free, or would you advocate that we simply stop distributing material copyrighted by citizens of Kraplakistan? I'd simply advocate that we stop distributing material copyrighted by citizens of Kraplakistan[1]. I don't think we should use the DFSG to try and change legal systems. As many others on this list have said in the past as well, we can't deal with countries with overly restrictive laws. Let's liken individual licenses to countries. We can refuse to distribute software bearing an individual license the same way we can refuse to distribute software from Kraplakistan. If both restrict the guaranteed freedoms, this is what we should do. - David Nusinow [1] Great name by the way :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
David Nusinow writes: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 03:53:56PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Adam McKenna writes: The copyright holder can sue users (or even random people off the street, for that matter) whether he put a choice of venue clause in his license or not. Please go back and read the rest of this thread, since your arguments were previously made and countered. You argue that since choice of venue is a small (or putatively reasonable) cost or form of discrimination, it can be ignored; the DFSG do not allow that. I don't feel that this argument was ever effectively countered. There's no explicit cost or discrimination such as send me five dollars or no black people can use this software. Because of this, the argument is hazy. Taking this line of argument to an extreme, the DFSG only prohibits royalties or fees for copying the software. There is no explicit DFSG freedom to use or modify the software without paying a fee. Still, I think that the DFSG mean to prohibit fees for any of use, modification or redistribution of the software. There is a debatable area around copyleft requirements, but when a cost is unrelated to the software itself, it does not seem defensible. (In hopes of avoiding a side debate, I think GPL-style copyleft is entirely appropriate.) Choice of venue imposes costs on those who would not normally be subject to that venue, although the cost is very hard to quantify a priori. From my own experience, I cannot agree with those who think the marginal cost is a negligible one. So far, the arguments that it is a necessary or acceptable cost have not been convincing, since they allege benefits to the copyright owner rather than to the users, and free software is not about what is good for copyright owners. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 04:56:15PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: From my own experience, I cannot agree with those who think the marginal cost is a negligible one. It's not negligible. Just not significant to the point where it increases the risk to an unacceptable level IMO. --Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 04:51:31PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: I'd simply advocate that we stop distributing material copyrighted by citizens of Kraplakistan[1]. I don't think we should use the DFSG to try and change legal systems. As many others on this list have said in the past as well, we can't deal with countries with overly restrictive laws. Let's liken individual licenses to countries. We can refuse to distribute software bearing an individual license the same way we can refuse to distribute software from Kraplakistan. If both restrict the guaranteed freedoms, this is what we should do. I'm likening COV clauses to copyright protection. They are both things that protect the copyright holder. People are saying that because COV is open to abuse, that makes it non-free. But copyright is also open to abuse, so the same arguments that are being applied to COV could be applied to copyright in general. [1] Great name by the way :-) Stolen from Austin Powers, I always did find that name amusing. --Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 05:12:39PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: I believe negligible includes your viewpoint. I'm not interested in arguing semantics; I believe I made my viewpoint quite clear. My own question, when presented with any such cost, is on what basis it *is* free, since the DFSG tend to not allow a copyright owner to impose costs on users. By that reasoning nothing is DFSG free, since you can't give up your right to sue someone (at least not in the US). --Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Adam McKenna writes: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 05:12:39PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: My own question, when presented with any such cost, is on what basis it *is* free, since the DFSG tend to not allow a copyright owner to impose costs on users. By that reasoning nothing is DFSG free, since you can't give up your right to sue someone (at least not in the US). Non sequitur. You acknowledged that there is an increase in cost when choice of venue is invoked. (It's not negligible. Just not significant[...].) No one has argued that any right to bring suit should or could be waived. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 12:59:25PM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 03:53:56PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: Please go back and read the rest of this thread, since your arguments were previously made and countered. You argue that since choice of venue is a small (or putatively reasonable) cost or form of discrimination, it can be ignored; the DFSG do not allow that. It's not a cost, it's a risk. There are plenty of other risks that we take when we distribute software, that we consider acceptable. What makes this one unacceptable? The fact that it's a risk *imposed explicitly by the license*. This is not a risk that's mitigated by cautious adherence to the license, and it is not a risk that's inherent in the exercise of rights that belong exclusively to the copyright holder; it's a risk that you are asked to accept in exchange for the right to exercise the four freedoms with respect to the work. I'm sure there are lots of people who are willing to accept this risk, and I'm even fairly confident that doing so is a win (at least with respect to copyright holders that are known quantities, like Sun or Apple). Still, I don't believe it's compatible with the principles of Free Software as expressed in the DFSG. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 12:33:23PM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 07:27:35PM +, MJ Ray wrote: It makes it inconvenient for users and debian-legal, needing to know local absurdities of Seaforth or whereever's court procedures. By this reasoning, we should reject every package for which someone holds copyright, because it is inconvenient for us to know the local absurdities of copyright law of Seaforth or whereever. No, actually, my country's government doesn't give a flying fruit basket what *another* country says copyright protections should be; if the work is being distributed in the US, it's US copyright law that applies, because in the absence of US copyright law *the work would enjoy no copyright protection at all*. This is one of the reasons the Berne Convention exists -- to ensure that signatory nations offer comparable copyright protections to works regardless of their country of origin. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:58:37 -0400 David Nusinow wrote: On Thu, Sep 15, 2005 at 10:53:38PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 19:11:03 -0400 David Nusinow wrote: Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. C'mon David! :-( We are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install Acrobat Reader if they choose. Consequently Acrobat Reader can be moved to main. This is nonsense... :-( Acrobat Reader clearly has restrictions on basic freedoms like distribution and modification. Maybe if you can give me a better example, I'll believe you. I apologize for not being clear enough. My point was that we are not forcing our users to install it cannot be a reason for uploading a package to main. That package must comply with Policy requirements for main, in order to actually belong in main. Hence we must discuss about Policy requirements (DFSG compliance in particular), not about something else. We are not forcing our users to install it is obviously true, but does not help in convincing people that a package should be moved to (or stay in) main. -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgplP3UV8sY6b.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 03:00:24PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 12:59:25PM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote: It's not a cost, it's a risk. There are plenty of other risks that we take when we distribute software, that we consider acceptable. What makes this one unacceptable? The fact that it's a risk *imposed explicitly by the license*. This is not a risk that's mitigated by cautious adherence to the license, and it is not a risk that's inherent in the exercise of rights that belong exclusively to the copyright holder; it's a risk that you are asked to accept in exchange for the right to exercise the four freedoms with respect to the work. I'm sure there are lots of people who are willing to accept this risk, and I'm even fairly confident that doing so is a win (at least with respect to copyright holders that are known quantities, like Sun or Apple). Still, I don't believe it's compatible with the principles of Free Software as expressed in the DFSG. I see your point, and I can see how you think this violates the spirit of the DFSG, but on the other hand I think that we shouldn't give undue consideration to potential corner cases (such as a copyright holder using this clause to harass and abuse). The risk here is certainly lower than, for example, distributing something we know is patented. --Adam -- Adam McKenna [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 03:16:40PM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote: On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 03:13:02PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: No, actually, my country's government doesn't give a flying fruit basket what *another* country says copyright protections should be; if the work is being distributed in the US, it's US copyright law that applies, because in the absence of US copyright law *the work would enjoy no copyright protection at all*. This is one of the reasons the Berne Convention exists -- to ensure that signatory nations offer comparable copyright protections to works regardless of their country of origin. Do we reject software that originates in countries that are not signatories of the Berne convention? No. Is there a reason we should? *Not* being a signatory to Berne doesn't give the author any *more* exclusive rights over the work than they would have if they *were* a signatory. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Thursday 15 September 2005 01:38, Matthew Garrett wrote: George Danchev [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There are real-world examples that choice-of-venue clauses could be more dangerous than without them. I'm not sure is DFSG can catch these challenges, but it certainly should not be read as glossary or as a bullet list with do's and dont's. The DFSG define what we consider free and what we consider non-free. If you believe that there's an issue that should prevent distribution of something, then say so - there are various pieces of DFSG software we fail to distribute because of other legal issues (primarily patent problems). But don't suggest that it's any sort of freeness issue. Good, you can have it that way then... DFSG's approval (lets say it survived DFSG) that some software is free software is not a legal base on which you can rely on, either as a user or developer. Having accepted choice-of-venue clauses makes the legal risks superfluous in some jurisdictions (possible baseless lawsuits involvement). Since it is not possible to check them all and how they could change over the time, then the best decision is to not expose people to challenges like these. So you can have it even DFSG-free, but pretty dangerous from legal point of view to mess with. -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Just to emphasise this point - *we can't even protect them from being sued in an arbitrary country*. It is not a matter of protecting users. It is a matter of not requiring users to actively drop whichever protection they *already* have. -- Henning Makholm Wir kommen nun ans Ziel unserer Ausführungen.
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit David Nusinow [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 04:56:09PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Yes they do. You have to suffer the choice-of-venue clause in order to get the freedoms we expect from software. That is a cost. It is a cost I do not want to pay just to get some software on my computer, and it is a cost that I cannot in good conscience advocate that Debian users should have to pay in order to get the freedoms of software that we promise comes with freedoms. This is nonsense. A choice of venue clause does not impose any fee on using, modifying, and distributing the software. Yes it does. By accepting such a clause the user waives his right to have the specified court reject nuisance suits against him on grounds of insufficient jurisdiction. He had this right before he accepted the license. He loses it by accepting. If he has to lose anything to get the required freedoms, that is a fee. It *only* has relevance in the realm of litigation. There is no way for the user to avoid the realm of litigation. He does not decide whether the author files a nuisance suit against him or not. No, you are completely mistaken. The risk associated with accepting a choice-of-venue clause hits *especially* users who have no plans to litigate over the license. Again, this is totally outside the realm of using, modifying, and distributing the software, which are the basic freedoms we expect. The license says that you cannot get the right to modify and distribute the software unless you accept the risk. It's not pretty, but it's outside the scope of the DFSG. The right to modify and distribute is within the scope of the DSFG. By extension it is also within the scope of the DSFG *what* one has to do to get the right to modify and distribute. Choice of venue means that one has to accept to lose a pre-existing protection before one gets the freedom to use, modify and distribute the software. We do not want to impose on our users that they have to lose that protection just because they depend on Debian. We accept that a user can have other restrictions on the modification of the software. We accept that the grant of right to modify may not cover all thinkable forms of modification. That simply means that it is possible to grant wider rights than it is necessary to grant for the DFSG. This is qualitatively different from saying you only get any right to modify if you agree to give up a completely unrelated right that you already have. We accept that a user can have restrictions on the distribution of software. We accept that the grant of right to distribute may not cover all thinkable forms of distribution. That simply means that it is possible to grant wider rights than it is necessary to grant for the DFSG. This is qualitatively different from saying you only get any right to distribute if you agree to give up a completely unrelated right that you already have. We can also accept such a restriction that lies completely outside these basic freedoms. We'are not talking about restriction of a grant. There is no grant to restrict in a choice-of-venue clause. It is simply a demand that the user waives a right that he would have without accepting the license. That is FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT form simply granting the right to do A without also granting the right to do B. Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. By putting the software in main, we tell our users that they get certain freedoms without having to give up anything to get those freedoms. That is *not* the case when the license for the software requires the licensee to accept a choice-of-venue clause. Therefore, putting the software in main would constitute lying. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. That is irrelevant. The relevant part is that the license requires people to *give up* protection that they *already have* in the absense of the license. -- Henning Makholm Monarki, er ikke noget materielt ... Borger! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit David Nusinow [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't like the idea of choice of venue clauses either, but I'm more uncomfortable with extending the DFSG to deal with things outside the realm of the basic freedoms we associate with software. There is no extensions going on. It has ALWAYS been the point of the DFSG that it specified some basic freedoms that have to exist and be granted to Debian users *without any strings attached*. A choice-of-venue clause is an attached string. It is immaterial what the precise nature of the string is. The only relevant is that you do not get the basic rights automatically -- you have to accept conditions that have nothing to with the basic rights. Therefore we must treat the license as if those basic rights are not given. Things you can only get by giving up something else are not given, for the purpose of the DFSG. This is not a new thing. It has always been so. It is *especially true* if the thing you have to give up is not related to the basic freedoms at all. -- Henning Makholm And here we could talk about the Plato's Cave thing for a while---the Veg-O-Matic of metaphors---it slices! it dices! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Copyright licences also shouldn't be used as a weapon to change the legal system. Why not? That has led to things such as any-patent-death clauses and supertrademarks. You say this as if it were a bad thing. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 19:11:03 -0400 David Nusinow wrote: Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. C'mon David! :-( We are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install Acrobat Reader if they choose. Consequently Acrobat Reader can be moved to main. This is nonsense... :-( -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpSS3vcAbLGl.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:02:54 +0200 Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Just to emphasise this point - *we can't even protect them from being sued in an arbitrary country*. It is not a matter of protecting users. It is a matter of not requiring users to actively drop whichever protection they *already* have. Indeed. -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpm1eZvNw81s.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Thursday 15 September 2005 23:53, Francesco Poli wrote: On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 19:11:03 -0400 David Nusinow wrote: Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. C'mon David! :-( We are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install Acrobat Reader if they choose. Consequently Acrobat Reader can be moved to main. This is nonsense... :-( Right ! Also count that mirror operators carring such software could find themselves in a baseless lawsuit adventure while being located or not in some exotic jurisdictions. If they manage to filter such crap somehow, then ftpmasters could serve as last resort being targeted for no good reasons. -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Copyright licences also shouldn't be used as a weapon to change the legal system. Why not? Do yourself a favour and learn how statutes and agreements differ. That has led to things such as any-patent-death clauses and supertrademarks. You say this as if it were a bad thing. Bad for hacker freedom. Maybe good for Marco. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Thu, Sep 15, 2005 at 10:53:38PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 19:11:03 -0400 David Nusinow wrote: Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. C'mon David! :-( We are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install Acrobat Reader if they choose. Consequently Acrobat Reader can be moved to main. This is nonsense... :-( Acrobat Reader clearly has restrictions on basic freedoms like distribution and modification. Maybe if you can give me a better example, I'll believe you. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 01:44:05AM +0300, George Danchev wrote: On Thursday 15 September 2005 23:53, Francesco Poli wrote: On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 19:11:03 -0400 David Nusinow wrote: Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. C'mon David! :-( We are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install Acrobat Reader if they choose. Consequently Acrobat Reader can be moved to main. This is nonsense... :-( Right ! Also count that mirror operators carring such software could find themselves in a baseless lawsuit adventure while being located or not in some exotic jurisdictions. If they manage to filter such crap somehow, then ftpmasters could serve as last resort being targeted for no good reasons. Do any of these choice of venue clauses impinge on simple redistribution? If so, I'd *definitely* be against those specific ones. If they don't relate to the simple redistribution that our mirror operators do, then I don't think this is an issue we have to worry about. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Mon, Sep 12, 2005 at 11:56:34AM -0300, Humberto Massa Guimarães wrote: ** David Nusinow :: If someone is going to file a lawsuit, someone has to pay for it. If the two sides live in different places, one of them has to travel no matter what, and thus pay for that expense. If we say that choice of venue clauses aren't Free, then the person bringing the suit will very likely have to travel and pay the fee (or that's my interpretation of Humberto and Michael Poole's responses). If not, then the person defending the suit will have to pay the fee. Either way, there is a cost involved. Why are we choosing sides if such a cost can't be avoided? Because: 1. it's greater the probability that the licensee is poorer than the licensor; I fully disagree with this. If a large corporation takes Free software written by an individual, this will not be the case. We've seen such cases in the Free Software world before. 2. the definition of user (as in we care about our users) fits the licensee better than the licensor -- even if it also fits the licensor; and, finally This is true, but I don't feel that it's enough to create a bias towards the licensee. 3. in the case of a fork (fork == GOOD(TM)) people can end up with a license that make BOTH the licensee and the licensor pay some (possibly hefty) cost to litigate the terms of the license. Example of #3 above: I start a (small) companya that distributes a fork of Mozilla -- under MPL1.1 -- , with a lot of improvements. Someone in Argentina forks my fork, and disobeys some of MPL's rules. Now, to prosecute that someone, I have to travel to California -- because I also agreed to the venue of the MPL 1.1. Worse yet, someone in my home town could be the culprit, and I would still have to go California to prosecute him... probably. This does not seem Free Software to me. This is a good argument, but ultimately it strikes me as negligable. If someone in Argentina forks my fork I'd have to travel to Argentina to prosecute them for it. This is a significant burden on me, and thus it wouldn't make a huge difference if I had to travel to California instead. In this case, both sides of the suit would actually be on equal footing, as neither would be on their home turf. Furthermore, the choice of venue clauses don't impose any sort of cost on the freedoms we expect from software. They do impose a potential cost on litigation related to that software, but the DFSG shouldn't be used as a weapon to change the legal system. It should be used to protect and guarantee that we have certain freedoms in relation to using, modifying, and distributing software. Choice of venue clauses don't change these freedoms. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Wednesday 14 September 2005 17:22, David Nusinow wrote: --cut-- Furthermore, the choice of venue clauses don't impose any sort of cost on the freedoms we expect from software. They do impose a potential cost on litigation related to that software, Please describe what do you think the potential litigation costs comprise ? Do you believe that anti-linux or anti-gpl author of cddl software will never try to explore the choice-of-venue clause dragging the case to a non-veracious jurisdiction ? but the DFSG shouldn't be used as a weapon to change the legal system. It should be used to protect and guarantee that we have certain freedoms in relation to using, modifying, and distributing software. Choice of venue clauses don't change these freedoms. There are real-world examples that choice-of-venue clauses could be more dangerous than without them. I'm not sure is DFSG can catch these challenges, but it certainly should not be read as glossary or as a bullet list with do's and dont's. -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
David Nusinow [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] They do impose a potential cost on litigation related to that software, but the DFSG shouldn't be used as a weapon to change the legal system. [...] Copyright licences also shouldn't be used as a weapon to change the legal system. That has led to things such as any-patent-death clauses and supertrademarks. Most non-copyright parts of the legal system, such as where your hearings take place, should be left alone. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
George Danchev [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There are real-world examples that choice-of-venue clauses could be more dangerous than without them. I'm not sure is DFSG can catch these challenges, but it certainly should not be read as glossary or as a bullet list with do's and dont's. The DFSG define what we consider free and what we consider non-free. If you believe that there's an issue that should prevent distribution of something, then say so - there are various pieces of DFSG software we fail to distribute because of other legal issues (primarily patent problems). But don't suggest that it's any sort of freeness issue. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 10:46:49PM +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: On Fri, 09 Sep 2005 17:17:06 -0400 David Nusinow wrote: I think we need to consider the point that Matthew has been raising though, that a choice of venue clause may be important for a program author to successfully defend their copyright. If the justification for this is to be grounded in the discrimination clause of the DFSG, we can't choose to discriminate against the program's authors. If this is to be grounded in the clause about not requiring a fee, we can't require that the program's author be forced to take on the burden of such a fee if they need to defend their copyright. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way, AFAICT. The DFSG are guidelines to determine whether a *right-holder* gives enough permissions to *licensees*, not whether *Debian* gives enough permissions to *right-holders*. Yes, but you must ground this in the rights that the DFSG guarantees the licensee. The two arguments that I've seen are based on either 1) cost or 2) discrimination. Neither of these holds up in my eyes. The cost is only associated with litigation, rather than the use, modification, and distribution of software. I don't like the idea of choice of venue clauses either, but I'm more uncomfortable with extending the DFSG to deal with things outside the realm of the basic freedoms we associate with software. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 04:56:09PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit David Nusinow [EMAIL PROTECTED] Furthermore, the choice of venue clauses don't impose any sort of cost on the freedoms we expect from software. Yes they do. You have to suffer the choice-of-venue clause in order to get the freedoms we expect from software. That is a cost. It is a cost I do not want to pay just to get some software on my computer, and it is a cost that I cannot in good conscience advocate that Debian users should have to pay in order to get the freedoms of software that we promise comes with freedoms. This is nonsense. A choice of venue clause does not impose any fee on using, modifying, and distributing the software. It *only* has relevance in the realm of litigation. They do impose a potential cost on litigation related to that software, No, you are completely mistaken. The risk associated with accepting a choice-of-venue clause hits *especially* users who have no plans to litigate over the license. Again, this is totally outside the realm of using, modifying, and distributing the software, which are the basic freedoms we expect. It's not pretty, but it's outside the scope of the DFSG. but the DFSG shouldn't be used as a weapon to change the legal system. It is not being used as a weapon to change the legal system. The legal system is fine as it is. We're merely protecting users from having a weapon trained on them that the legal system does not ordinarily provide. It should be used to protect and guarantee that we have certain freedoms in relation to using, modifying, and distributing software. Choice of venue clauses don't change these freedoms. Choice of venue means that one has to accept to lose a pre-existing protection before one gets the freedom to use, modify and distribute the software. We do not want to impose on our users that they have to lose that protection just because they depend on Debian. We accept that a user can have other restrictions on the modification of the software. We accept that a user can have restrictions on the distribution of software. We can also accept such a restriction that lies completely outside these basic freedoms. Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. - David Nusinow -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
David Nusinow [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. Just to emphasise this point - *we can't even protect them from being sued in an arbitrary country*. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
David Nusinow writes: On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 04:56:09PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit David Nusinow [EMAIL PROTECTED] Furthermore, the choice of venue clauses don't impose any sort of cost on the freedoms we expect from software. Yes they do. You have to suffer the choice-of-venue clause in order to get the freedoms we expect from software. That is a cost. It is a cost I do not want to pay just to get some software on my computer, and it is a cost that I cannot in good conscience advocate that Debian users should have to pay in order to get the freedoms of software that we promise comes with freedoms. This is nonsense. A choice of venue clause does not impose any fee on using, modifying, and distributing the software. It *only* has relevance in the realm of litigation. As a number of cases have shown, the realm of litigation is a concern for software users. Any time a user accepts a choice of venue clause, they agree to be bound by that particular court's rulings, and no one seems to claim it is cheaper to defend oneself in a foreign court than in one's normal jurisdiction. At least in the US, courts have held that a conditional promise is a thing of contractual value, and when that promise is not directly related to a piece of software, it prima facie qualifies as a use or modification fee. Saying that choice of venue is free seems no different than saying You agree to not use this software in connection with the production of nuclear energy or You agree to not use this software for any military purpose is free -- all are waivers of a course of action that the user has in the absence of that license. After all, just like choice of venue, those only have any effect in the realm of litigation! [snip] Furthermore, we are not imposing anything on our users. They are free to not install such software if they choose. We can't completely protect people from being sued to begin with. These facts are irrelevant. Users have the freedom to install (or not install) database software with a license that prohibits them from publishing benchmark results. That restriction still makes such software ineligible as for inclusion in Debian. We cannot protect people from being sued, but we can protect people from waiving their normal statutory rights. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Saying that choice of venue is free seems no different than saying You agree to not use this software in connection with the production of nuclear energy or You agree to not use this software for any military purpose is free -- all are waivers of a course of action that the user has in the absence of that license. After all, just like choice of venue, those only have any effect in the realm of litigation! No. Those are restrictions on use, which are explicitly forbidden in DFSG 6 (The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor.). Choice of venue is not, and so isn't. That's a pretty obvious difference. These facts are irrelevant. Users have the freedom to install (or not install) database software with a license that prohibits them from publishing benchmark results. That restriction still makes such software ineligible as for inclusion in Debian. We cannot protect people from being sued, but we can protect people from waiving their normal statutory rights. When there's no conflict between that waiving and the user's ability to engage in the four essential freedoms, then why not? -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Matthew Garrett writes: Michael Poole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Saying that choice of venue is free seems no different than saying You agree to not use this software in connection with the production of nuclear energy or You agree to not use this software for any military purpose is free -- all are waivers of a course of action that the user has in the absence of that license. After all, just like choice of venue, those only have any effect in the realm of litigation! No. Those are restrictions on use, which are explicitly forbidden in DFSG 6 (The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor.). Choice of venue is not, and so isn't. That's a pretty obvious difference. Fine. Instead change the restrictions to to You agree not to produce nuclear energy and You agree not to engage in miltary activity. The hypothetical pet a cat license is generally treated as non-free, even though the promise in question has nothing to do with software freedoms. Are such licenses more or less free than ones where the promise is restricted to the four essential freedoms you mention? These facts are irrelevant. Users have the freedom to install (or not install) database software with a license that prohibits them from publishing benchmark results. That restriction still makes such software ineligible as for inclusion in Debian. We cannot protect people from being sued, but we can protect people from waiving their normal statutory rights. When there's no conflict between that waiving and the user's ability to engage in the four essential freedoms, then why not? Even assuming that the choice of venue is not itself a fee or form of discrimination, how much should I elaborate on the chilling effect of threats to drag someone into gratuitously inconvenient litigation? Being able to choose a convenient venue gives copyright owners a huge lever whenever they disagree with a user's exercise of those freedoms. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
** David Nusinow :: If someone is going to file a lawsuit, someone has to pay for it. If the two sides live in different places, one of them has to travel no matter what, and thus pay for that expense. If we say that choice of venue clauses aren't Free, then the person bringing the suit will very likely have to travel and pay the fee (or that's my interpretation of Humberto and Michael Poole's responses). If not, then the person defending the suit will have to pay the fee. Either way, there is a cost involved. Why are we choosing sides if such a cost can't be avoided? Because: 1. it's greater the probability that the licensee is poorer than the licensor; 2. the definition of user (as in we care about our users) fits the licensee better than the licensor -- even if it also fits the licensor; and, finally 3. in the case of a fork (fork == GOOD(TM)) people can end up with a license that make BOTH the licensee and the licensor pay some (possibly hefty) cost to litigate the terms of the license. Example of #3 above: I start a (small) companya that distributes a fork of Mozilla -- under MPL1.1 -- , with a lot of improvements. Someone in Argentina forks my fork, and disobeys some of MPL's rules. Now, to prosecute that someone, I have to travel to California -- because I also agreed to the venue of the MPL 1.1. Worse yet, someone in my home town could be the culprit, and I would still have to go California to prosecute him... probably. This does not seem Free Software to me. -- HTH, Massa -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is, in my opinion, the natural and direct extension of the explicit language that a license cannot require royalties or other fees to be paid in exchange for the rights described in the In my opinion, this is not natural nor direct. Looks like we are down to opinions again... -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 00:25:38 +0100 Matthew Garrett wrote: Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry, but it doesn't work that way, AFAICT. The DFSG are guidelines to determine whether a *right-holder* gives enough permissions to *licensees*, not whether *Debian* gives enough permissions to *right-holders*. That doesn't appear to be part of the social contract. Well, many DFSG begin with The license must... or The license may They are guidelines that must be followed by the license: *licensees* need a license, *right-holders* don't. So I don't see how can the DFSG specify the permissions that *Debian* gives to *right-holders*... Correct me if I'm wrong. -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpSOyjP6ddDV.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 05:54:34PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: On Sep 09, George Danchev [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Debian has always been full of software licensed that way ;-) Now you want (unintentially) to leave possible holes thru new 'a-la sco insane cases' to enter the scene... all over the world. Not now. Debian (and I think every other distribution) has been distributing software with this kind of licenses for years, without any apparent ill effect on users. And do not forget that there are many places (e.g. California) which allow big companies (e.g. the MPAA or Adobe) to sue there people from other states or countries (e.g. people accused to violate the DMCA) without even the need for a license... If you look at the big picture, choice of venue clauses are not much important. Erm, Matt Pavlovich *won* that appeal to the California supreme court; distribution of allegedly infringing material over the Internet is *not* sufficient to give the California courts jurisdiction over a case. But accepting a choice of venue clause is. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Scripsit [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco d'Itri) So finally we are up to the good old every restriction is a discrimination argument. Even if in the last two years it has become popular among some debian-legal@ contributors while the rest of the project was not looking, I believe that it is based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of DFSG #5. For what it's worth, I do not believe that DFSG #5 is a sensible reason to consider choice-of-venue clauses non-free. The sensible reason to consider choice-of-venue clauses non-free is the following general principle: A license can only be free if one can always accept the license without losing any right that one had before one received the license. (Those who think that licenses are not contracts and do not need to be accepted, feel free to substitue use the rights granted instead of accept). This is, in my opinion, the natural and direct extension of the explicit language that a license cannot require royalties or other fees to be paid in exchange for the rights described in the DFSG. Plain and simple, if it requires that you give up *anything* that you already had before, then it's not free. A choice-of-venue clause is a demand that I give up my right to have the specified foreign court automatically throw out a nuisance suit citing lack on the grounds of personal jurisidiction. Without the license I have this right; with it I don't. To try to shoehorn such a fundamental principle into the much more specific DSFG#5 just to please some literal-minded apologists who want the DFSG to be an objective ruleset rather than a set of guidelines, is just silly. -- Henning Makholm The Central Intelligence Agency is committed to protecting your privacy and will collect no personal information about you unless you choose to provide that information to us. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 04:23:42PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco d'Itri) So finally we are up to the good old every restriction is a discrimination argument. Even if in the last two years it has become popular among some debian-legal@ contributors while the rest of the project was not looking, I believe that it is based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of DFSG #5. For what it's worth, I do not believe that DFSG #5 is a sensible reason to consider choice-of-venue clauses non-free. The sensible reason to consider choice-of-venue clauses non-free is the following general principle: A license can only be free if one can always accept the license without losing any right that one had before one received the license. (Those who think that licenses are not contracts and do not need to be accepted, feel free to substitue use the rights granted instead of accept). This is, in my opinion, the natural and direct extension of the explicit language that a license cannot require royalties or other fees to be paid in exchange for the rights described in the DFSG. Plain and simple, if it requires that you give up *anything* that you already had before, then it's not free. A choice-of-venue clause is a demand that I give up my right to have the specified foreign court automatically throw out a nuisance suit citing lack on the grounds of personal jurisidiction. Without the license I have this right; with it I don't. To try to shoehorn such a fundamental principle into the much more specific DSFG#5 just to please some literal-minded apologists who want the DFSG to be an objective ruleset rather than a set of guidelines, is just silly. So, what do you propose a new DFSG rule addition for the above principle ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 16:23:42 +0200 Henning Makholm wrote: [...] For what it's worth, I do not believe that DFSG #5 is a sensible reason to consider choice-of-venue clauses non-free. The sensible reason to consider choice-of-venue clauses non-free is the following general principle: A license can only be free if one can always accept the license without losing any right that one had before one received the license. (Those who think that licenses are not contracts and do not need to be accepted, feel free to substitue use the rights granted instead of accept). This is, in my opinion, the natural and direct extension of the explicit language that a license cannot require royalties or other fees to be paid in exchange for the rights described in the DFSG. Plain and simple, if it requires that you give up *anything* that you already had before, then it's not free. You are right, DFSG#1 is more suitable than DFSG#5 to conclude that choice-of-venue is non-free. -- :-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-) .. Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4 Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4 pgpq0jLgwTlmO.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Francesco Poli [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry, but it doesn't work that way, AFAICT. The DFSG are guidelines to determine whether a *right-holder* gives enough permissions to *licensees*, not whether *Debian* gives enough permissions to *right-holders*. That doesn't appear to be part of the social contract. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 06:52:07PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: On Fri, 09 Sep 2005, John Hasler wrote: Gunnar Wolf writes: ...Or get him extradited somehow. Extradition has nothing to do with civil lawsuits. Hey, copyright infringement is a crime these days... And the US has obtained extradition treaties for it and is using them. I've lost my reference on that one, sorry. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Saturday 10 September 2005 02:48, David Nusinow wrote: --cut-- If someone is going to file a lawsuit, someone has to pay for it. If the two sides live in different places, one of them has to travel no matter what, and thus pay for that expense. If we say that choice of venue clauses aren't Free, then the person bringing the suit will very likely have to travel and pay the fee (or that's my interpretation of Humberto and Michael Poole's responses). If not, then the person defending the suit will have to pay the fee. Either way, there is a cost involved. Why are we choosing sides if such a cost can't be avoided? The travel fee is the little problem or that is where your problem arises. You might not even travel anywhere or they can pay it to sue you in an insane or biased jurisdictions all over the globe (you accepted the venue clause). In cases like that they can easily have back their previously paid fees multiple times making your life (and probably the life of thousand users) miserable. It is not feasible the know for sure which jurisdictions are sane and how they change over the time. I personally do not think I'll accept such clauses ever. -- pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu fingerprint 1AE7 7C66 0A26 5BFF DF22 5D55 1C57 0C89 0E4B D0AB -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 07:48:12PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: If the justification for this is to be grounded in the discrimination clause of the DFSG, we can't choose to discriminate against the program's authors. Even if we accept this argument, how is putting the authors on equal footing with the users discrimination? Perhaps that wasn't the best way to argue that I don't think it falls under the discrimination clause, as some have argued. This strikes me as a really far cry from saying something like No Israelis can use this software, which is the sort of thing the clause was really meant to protect against. I thought only Bruce was allowed to make assertions about intent. :) If this is to be grounded in the clause about not requiring a fee, we can't require that the program's author be forced to take on the burden of such a fee if they need to defend their copyright. Sorry, this sentence registers as complete nonsense to me. If you're going to claim that requiring certain things of *authors* before their code can be included in Debian is a fee, how is this particular fee different from the fee of publishing source code? If someone is going to file a lawsuit, someone has to pay for it. If the two sides live in different places, one of them has to travel no matter what, and thus pay for that expense. If we say that choice of venue clauses aren't Free, then the person bringing the suit will very likely have to travel and pay the fee (or that's my interpretation of Humberto and Michael Poole's responses). If not, then the person defending the suit will have to pay the fee. Either way, there is a cost involved. Why are we choosing sides if such a cost can't be avoided? I think it's a rather strange presumption that it *can't* be avoided, given that my canonical example of the problems caused by choice of venue is that of a wrongful suit from a hostile copyright holder who wouldn't dare to *try* it if they were constrained by the default rules on jurisdiction. And remember that in many jurisdictions, it's also possible to sue for legal expenses under various circumstances. That means that the net (monetary) cost to a copyright holder for defending his copyright is potentially zero. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On 9/9/05, David Nusinow [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Part of the issue with the existing framework of personal jurisdiction is that we don't seem to have a clear idea what it actually is. I haven't seen any links to documents explaining how jurisdiction is actually determined in real life cases. Michael Poole's link from elsewhere in the thread is the closest thing, but it's unclear to me how exactly this would work in real world situations. Since the actual framework remains a mystery to me, I see issues with declaring that the framework is sufficient and doesn't need to be modified by a license. I've googled looking for examples of how a venue is determined normally in international cases, but to no avail as of yet, but I'll keep looking. Some real data would help here. A real-world example, mostly about trademark rather than copyright or contract, and not international -- but interstate and inter-circuit, defended pro se, and documented out the yin-yang: http://www.taubmansucks.com/ . Cheers, - Michael
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 05:17:06PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 09:55:24PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: Not really interested in the case where you actually did infringe on the license. I don't think it's worthwhile to worry about whether we discriminate against such people. Nuisance lawsuits are the canonical example of the important part here. That's the scenario where choice-of-venue is bad. Ok, thank you for clarifying that. I think we need to consider the point that Matthew has been raising though, that a choice of venue clause may be important for a program author to successfully defend their copyright. If the justification for this is to be grounded in the discrimination clause of the DFSG, we can't choose to discriminate against the program's authors. If this is to be grounded in the clause about not requiring a fee, we can't require that the program's author be forced to take on the burden of such a fee if they need to defend their copyright. Notice that the CDDL says : with the losing party responsible for costs, including, without limitation, court costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses how does that modify our acceptance of the choice-of-venue ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 07:48:12PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: Sorry, this sentence registers as complete nonsense to me. If you're going to claim that requiring certain things of *authors* before their code can be included in Debian is a fee, how is this particular fee different from the fee of publishing source code? If someone is going to file a lawsuit, someone has to pay for it. If the two sides live in different places, one of them has to travel no matter what, and thus pay for that expense. If we say that choice of venue clauses aren't Free, then the person bringing the suit will very likely have to travel and pay the fee (or that's my interpretation of Humberto and Michael Poole's responses). If not, then the person defending the suit will have to pay the fee. Either way, there is a cost involved. Why are we choosing sides if such a cost can't be avoided? Especially as the CDDL mentions that the loosing side has to pay the expenses. This leaves only the need to advance the money, and the problem with a given court having the risk of not being fair or just or whatever the name is, and in some way favour the author. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 12:27:08AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: And remember that in many jurisdictions, it's also possible to sue for legal expenses under various circumstances. That means that the net (monetary) cost to a copyright holder for defending his copyright is potentially zero. Ah, but the CDDL does take that in account, and mentions explicitly that all epxenses will be paid by the loosing side. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Choice of venue is a practical problem because it limits the number of people who can understand the full meaning of a licence, including the local wrinkles of its venue. I say there's potential for an effective fee in some cases, but I don't know the courts of (say) Santa Clara well enough to know if that's the case there. I dislike lawyerbombs :-/ Unfortunately, many people aren't familiar enough with their home legal systems to know how choice of venue being included or not would affect them. That's OK in a way: copyright sucks and debian tries to help users avoid some of the worst bits. Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] Within the UK alone, I can end up paying fairly large travel fees to deal with a court case. [...] Only if you can afford them temporarily, until costs are awarded. Otherwise, a request to transfer to your home court is usually granted. See Department for Constitutional Affairs, Civil Procedure Rules, Part 30: Transfer. (A similar process is used when I claim money owed to my business, so I've seen this.) http://www.dca.gov.uk/civil/procrules_fin/contents/parts/part30.htm Do English courts consider venue clauses during this? Seems not. The points about living in the Scottish highlands border on the absurd. Scotland and England are different countries, legally, which limits the travel required a bit. A venue clause may make little difference in some places. As suggested by a couple of contributors, English penalties may be large enough now to trigger extradition for copyright infringement. I've forgotten what the Copyright [...] Act 2002 did. They're even making penalties large enough to *fast* extradite computer crackers: see April or so back on debian-uk. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
Matthew Garrett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If the licensor doesn't have enough money to enforce them, then yes, I think they're pointless. What's the point of a license that you can't enforce? A licence can communicate your wishes to others clearly and it's a sort of promise to your collaborators that you won't come back and hunt them down when you do have money to protect your copyright. I know some like to obsess about courts, but even without lawyer backing, copyright licences have social and practical effects. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
