Re: APSL Hidden Nasty's
Jules Bean writes:
> There is a license.
> I quote from the book in my hands
> "Copyright (c) 1997,1996 O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. All rights
> reserved."
That is not a license. A license grants rights. That grants none. It is
just a copyright notice. You would have exactly the same rights if the
publisher omitted it entirely.
> You don't think licenses are enforceable on minors. I find that hard to
> believe.
A free software license grants rights beyond those permitted to the owner
of a copy by copyright law. If a free license is a contract and a minor
can therefor not agree to it, he receives none of the rights granted by the
license. This puts him in exactly the same legal situation wrt his copy of
emacs as to his copy of _Programming Perl_.
I don't think that a 16 year old who was caught selling bootleg copies of
_Programming Perl_ could use the "I'm a minor so I don't have to honor my
contracts" defense, because no contract is involved. He didn't enter into
an agreement to give up his right to copy _Programming Perl_ in return for
some consideration: he lost it through operation of law.
--
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI
Reply to: