Re: RFC: GPL plus securities industry disclaimer suitable for main?
Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com> writes:
> Oh, definetly. It's clearly open for interpretation, my issue is that
> it's very vague and has to be interpreted. Eg, where do the laws of
> England stop and the laws of the jurisdiction of the licensee begin?
The laws of England control *interpretation* of the contract, and a
few other things, but not venue, nor jurisdiction, nor the reach of a
"this license bars illegal acts" rule. In other words, it doesn't
mean "illegal in England" or "illegal in the US", because English law
certainly doesn't give it that meaning. English law surely gives it
the meaning "illegal in the relevant local context".
> The most conservative approach is to assume that you are going to be
> subject to the most restrictive set of laws of either the local
> jurisdiction or the agreement's.
No, the point is that choice-of-law isn't really ambiguous at all.
Importantly (very importantly) they don't "interlock" in the kind of
way you are afraid they might. The whole point of choice-of-law is
that it doesn't do anything more than answer the otherwise uncertain
question "whose law governs this". For that reason, *cannot*
impinge the freeness of a license, unless the chosen law would
interpret a given clause as non-free. But in that case, it would
*already* be non-free for domestic cases in that jurisdiction.
Of course, this is all moot since as you point out, other clauses are
total deal killers anyway.
Thomas
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