Re: Bug#251983: libcwd: QPL license is non-free; package should not be in main
(Nathanael dropped from CC; I'm fairly certain he's subscribed.)
On Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 11:33:14PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote:
> also sprach Carlo Wood <carlo@alinoe.com> [2004.06.01.1951 +0200]:
> > The choice of law is my choice and not of the person who doesn't
> > follow the rules of the license. I am convinced that the choice
> > of law has no influence on the *intend* of the license and as such
> > cannot cause a license to fail the DFSG - which only describes
> > what the intend of a license is (it is written in a general way).
>
> i am also not clear on that. I don't think the DFSG denies a choice
> of legal venue.
I'm a little confused by the license: it says "choice of law", but then
appears to make a choice of venue as well. I'll quote Henning Makholm's
explanation:
"A choice-of-venue clause means that the user must agree to being sued in
a specific court of the author's choice whenever the author decides to
sue. By the nature of lawsuits, such a requirement takes effect before
the court decides whether the author's complaint is justified. As many
courts automatically rule against parties who does not meet in court,
choice-of-venue clauses implicitly bind the user to travel to a foreign
court at the whim of the author.
In contrast, a choice-of-law merely specifies which jurisdiction's laws
will be used to resolve disputes over what the license text means.
Licenses with choice-of-law clauses can be free if the specified
jurisdiction's laws lead to an interpreation of the license text that
meets the guidelines."
> > Since http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php contains
> > a rationale for each guideline, I prefer to use that document as
> > a base of this discussion.
Neither OSI and Debian's rationale nor their interpretations of the text
are always in sync. Using the OSI as a basis for interpreting the DFSG
leads to misunderstandings, such as ...
> There is no need to change it as it satisfies the DFSG.
It's unfortunate that Debian and the OSI don't always agree, but it's an
unavoidable result of the fact that they're two very different organizations.
> > Unless your lawyers prove
> > otherwise and an explicit note on the debian website is made that
> > the QPL does NOT satisfy the DFSG I advise you to take no action
> > and keep things as the are.
The DFSG is not a legal document; lawyers don't interpret it, Debian
developers (and other interested parties) do. I'd recommend reading
section 8 of
http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html
--
Glenn Maynard
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