Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
On Thursday 15 September 2005 01:38, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> George Danchev <danchev@spnet.net> wrote:
> > There are real-world examples that choice-of-venue clauses could be more
> > dangerous than without them. I'm not sure is DFSG can catch these
> > challenges, but it certainly should not be read as glossary or as a
> > bullet list with do's and dont's.
>
> The DFSG define what we consider free and what we consider non-free. If
> you believe that there's an issue that should prevent distribution of
> something, then say so - there are various pieces of DFSG software we
> fail to distribute because of other legal issues (primarily patent
> problems). But don't suggest that it's any sort of freeness issue.
Good, you can have it that way then... DFSG's approval (lets say it survived
DFSG) that some software is free software is not a legal base on which you
can rely on, either as a user or developer. Having accepted choice-of-venue
clauses makes the legal risks superfluous in some jurisdictions (possible
baseless lawsuits involvement). Since it is not possible to check them all
and how they could change over the time, then the best decision is to not
expose people to challenges like these.
So you can have it even DFSG-free, but pretty dangerous from legal point of
view to mess with.
--
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