Re: Always free?
Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>:
> Well, wouldn't you say that gratis QA, bugfixes, and enhancements to the
> code under reciprocal terms count as a form of consideration?
>
> Of course, my logic doesn't apply to freely-licensed software that is
> bug-free and never patched, but that's a pretty small domain.
I would go further and say that even if you didn't find any bugs,
looking for them is still a useful service.
A lot of things would break if licences were arbitrarily revocable. I
haven't heard of it happening in practice, and I'm not sure the
"consideration" argument from contract law has any validity. All it
seems to be saying is that a typical free software licence isn't a
valid contract because there is no consideration. But who's saying it
has to be a contract? If someone infringes your copyright you sue them
for copyright infringement not breach of contract. If they think that
they haven't infringed because you gave them a licence, then
presumably they produce the licence in court rather than countersue
for breach of contract, so what's contract law got to do with it at
all?
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