Re: Adobe open source license -- is this licence free?
On 1/28/06, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 28, 2006 at 09:32:12PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> > On 1/28/06, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> > > Harrassing lawsuits are the extreme case. It's a similar problem with,
> > > for example, honest but incorrect claims. I don't see why the licensor
> > > should get to override the venue in *any* case where he's the one
> > > instigating the lawsuit.
> >
> > So what "honest but incorrect claims" does this license allow
> > that could be problematic? In the sense of alleging specifc
> > misbehavior.
>
> I meant: not only does this give the advantage to the accuser in the
> case of deliberate, hostile legal action, but also in the case of
> reasonable legal action where the accused licensee wasn't actually
> at fault.
>
> > I'm just not seeing it.
>
> I'm just not seeing the defensibility of "any lawsuits we instigate
> will be tried on our home turf", regardless of motives or the eventual
> outcome.
1) what lawsuits does this provide for that something else
(GPL? BSD?) wouldn't also allow?
2) The contract does not state that the decisions must be made in
California. It says that the dispute must be brought to a CA
court, but does not require that it remain there. If there's
good reason for it to be resolved elsewhere (which would
be the case in a specious lawsuit), this clause shouldn't
be a problem.
For that matter, this clause kicks in only for legal actions related
to the license. A specious action is not going to be related
to the license.
Beyond that: if Adobe files in a CA court, even without this
clause a person is still going to have to deal with that situation
somehow. And if the action is specious, the person can simply
dispute that the license is relevant to the action.
A court would only issue a summary judgement where there is
no valid dispute. In the case of a specious lawsuit, that means
that the summary judgement would most likely be against
Adobe (and a slight chance that the court wouldn't recognize
the action as specious and would treat it as fair dispute).
So in the context of harassment, either the court would rule
that it's harassment (with all that implies) or would rule that
the relevance of the license is in dispute (and thus the
dispute does not need to be tried in CA at least until the
dispute is resolved).
If you think differently, please give a specific example of
how this would work -- it's easy to say "that's not going
to work", but if there's nothing specific in your argument
it's hard to say what you really mean.
Thanks,
--
Raul
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