Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta
On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 11:28:22AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> Anthony Towns writes:
>
> > I don't think that's meaningful; if I sue you in a court in Australia
> > for not complying with debootstrap's license, and they find that you've
> > infringed the license, it doesn't really matter if I'm doing that out
> > of maliciousness or a genuine. And as far as the actual effects go,
> > I'm not sure you're going to be any better off without that clause in
> > your license: if you set foot in Australia, with an Australian judgement
> > against you, there's a good chance of it being enforced; and if you don't,
> > there seems to be a practical possibility of your extradition anyway,
> > based on [0].
>
> Extradition is for criminal cases, not civil cases. I cannot imagine
> how a choice of venue clause would significantly either help or hurt a
> criminal defendant.
That makes it even better.
If you get sued and convicted as a private person in a jurisdiction that
is not yours, there are two possible outcomes:
* You try to defend yourself, and might win or lose depending on the
case. If you go to the jurisdiction where you are being sued, the end
result might be that enforcement is likely.
* You do nothing, and nothing happens
You see, if a judge in the U.S. decides that I am guilty as charged
based upon evidence brought before him, I couldn't care less. Belgium
does not extradite its own citizens unless those have been convicted by
Belgian judges and found guilty; so as long as I do not do anything
which might be illegal by Belgian law, there's nothing to stop me from
not following the license. Sure, that probably means I should be wary of
going to the U.S. while convicted there, but perhaps I can live with
that. And indeed, since extradition isn't for civil cases, they wouldn't
even ask for extradition in the first place.
On top of that, the licensor couldn't even sue me in Belgium, since then
*I* could invoke the choice-of-venue clause to prevent that.
Hadn't thought of that before, but I'm starting to like these clauses.
--
Shaw's Principle:
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will
want to use it.
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