Sam Hartman wrote:
"Nathanael" == Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com> writes:Nathanael> Matthew Garrett wrote: >> I'd rather go with a similar policy to where we stand with >> patents. If a license termination clause isn't being actively >> enforced, and there's no good reason to suspect that it will be >> in future, we should accept it as free. Nathanael> I would assume that if a licensor put such a clause in Nathanael> their license, they intend to use it. I don't think this is a good assumption based on my involvement in development of legal documents. Most lawyers need an explicit reason to not include something, not a reason to include something.
That is, to say the least, disturbing.Shall we assume that no clauses are intended to be used, ever, unless we have explicit information to the contrary?
That would be an interesting way to analyze what rights you get from a license. It would mean that it was *very* easy for a "free" work to turn out to be non-free at the whim of the licensor. It would probably allow whole gobs of stuff in.
--Wouldn't a deliberate policy like this mean that Debian would be very open to lawsuits for wilful license violation/copyright infringement (since we'd "ignore" clauses which aren't intended to be used)?
Or perhaps such clauses should be allowed, but only if they require explicit notification from the copyright holder and an opportunity to correct the problem before they activate? That would at least avoid the wilful violation problem. I guess there's a case to be made for that.
I don't like it because of the "you had rights, but you don't any more" problem, but YMMV.
-- That said, Matthew Garrett (I think) pointed out the following:(1) The problem with choice-of-venue clauses is that they help with using frivolous lawsuits to make something effectively non-free for poor defendants. (2) However, even without such clauses, it's quite easy to use frivolous lawsuits to do the same amount of damage, thanks to problems with the US and probably other court systems. (It can be argued whether or not this is true, but I'll believe it.)
(3) Therefore, choice of venue clauses do no actual harm.So at this point I have been convinced that they're acceptable in a free license. I still disapprove of them, though.