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Re: RFC: GPL plus securities industry disclaimer suitable for main?



On Thu, 02 Oct 2003, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 09:35:44PM -0500, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> > > > > The terms of use are to be construed in accordance with the Laws of
> > > > > England.
> 
> In my opinion, choice of law provisions are certainly not
> GPL-incompatibilities.  

I think that it's necessary to consider the whole of the license when
dealing with choice of law provisions. This particular choice of law
provision interacts interestingly with the first part of clause 11 of
the license (the second part is clearly non-free BTW):

     11. [...] You agree not use this information for any illegal
     purpose. If you choose to download any information, you agree not
     to further copy such information, or redistribute such
     information in any manner.

The first part seems to indicate that purposes that are illegal in
England are prohibited by the license. This is is a usage restraint,
as England might choose to make certain useages of information
illegal, whereas they remain legal in other countries.

The final part of clause 11, is seemingly a death-knell, though, for
any hopes of DFSG freeness for this license.


Don Armstrong

-- 
I'd sign up in a hot second for any cellular company whose motto was:
"We're less horrible than a root canal with a cold chisel."
-- Cory Doctorow

http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://www.anylevel.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu

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