Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta

[Don Armstrong <don@debian.org>]

On Tue, 05 Jun 2007, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Two different analogous licenses might be:
> 
>   By distributing the covered work, you agree that the copyright holder
>   can sue you for violations of the license.
> 
>   If you distribute the covered work, the licensor agrees not to sue you
>   in any jurisdiction other than Berlin, Germany.
>
> Heck, is choice of venue actually different to the combination of those
> clauses?

Yes; choice of venue is better written as "if you distribute the
convered work, you agree for all suits covering the work to be held in
Berlin, Germany."

> > [...] The current clause, though, puts the copyright holder in the
> > dealer's seat, and the house always wins.
> 
> Well, that's only true over the long term, and I don't think it's
> necessarily true even over the long term for court cases.

Considering Sun's apparent interpretation though, they could easily
rewrite this clause to be in the position of resolving abiguities of
jurisdiction, or a defensive only jurisidiction clause. Either would
resolve my personal problems with the CDDL, and I believe would solve
the problems most -legal contributors have with the license.


Don Armstrong

-- 
Unix, MS-DOS, and Windows NT (also known as the Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly).
 -- Matt Welsh

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu