"Henri Sivonen" <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote in message [🔎] e62ff42eabddfb007d09b89f3969d2a0@iki.fi">news:[🔎] e62ff42eabddfb007d09b89f3969d2a0@iki.fi...
On Sep 9, 2005, at 22:16, Joe Smith wrote:[...] o 1.13. "You" (or "Your") means an individual or a legal entity exercising rights under, and complying with all of the terms of, this License. For legal entities, "You" includes any entity which controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with You. For purposes of this definition, "control" means (a) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (b) ownership of more than fifty percent (50%) of the outstanding shares or beneficialownership of such entity.By the way, this (b) seems an unusual definition of control. When I've seen this defined for cybercrime, it's usually the executive directors, not the majority shareholder too. I don't think it has clear implications for meeting DFSG, but it smells odd. Is it usual in the US to class all companies someone owns more than half of as an extension of that person?Um... The phrasing there talks about legal entities. Legal entites are things like corporations not people.Note that the word control is used only under the section speeking about legal entities, not individuals. It is very normal in the US to class all companies of which a legal entity owns more than half as an ententionof the legal entity.FWIW, the phrasing comes verbatim from MPL 1.1. MPL 1.1 is DFSG-free, right?
I personally read this as if company A owns (at least 50.00000000001% of ) company B then for the purposes of the licence Company A==Company B. Nothing paricularly non-free seeming about that. Heck it means that moving code between subsideriaries is not distribution, which could be helpful to some companies. So I think this clause is a non-issue.