Re: SGI Free SW license 1.1 compatability with Xfree86 style license
Henning Makholm wrote:
>
> Scripsit James LewisMoss <jimdres@mindspring.com>
>
> > The main sentence of this section is "Recipient shall be solely
> > responsible for damages arising, directly or indirectly, out of its
> > utilization of rights under this License." The sentence you are
> > harping on is a clarification of this sentence.
>
> Well, that's a possible reasoning, but how can you be sure that the
> second sentence is not just another, independently valid, rule?
Henning, I think you are going on-and-on about nothing. Do you really
fear that SGI is going to come after you if you use the software that
they openly release? Or are you just enjoying an exercise in word-
wrangling?
To idemnify means, in this kind of context, roughly, to hold harmless,
to _release_ from claims of liability, so that if _you_ suffer loss
through the use of the software, or if _someone_ else suffers loss
through _your_ use of it, and you are sued, you will not try to have
SGI included as a co-defendant, nor admit that SGI _ought_ to be
a co-defendant, but rather, claim that SGI _has_ no liability in
the matter, so that if the plaintiff _did_ attempt to sue SGI
as well as you for whatever you may have done to the plaintiff
through the use of the software, YOU ALREADY AGREE to back up
SGI's motion to be dismissed as a co-defendant.
If SGI were to suffer business losses as a result of you successfully
competeing through the use of their software, the losses wouldn't
really be due to you, but their own lack of competetiveness and
efficiency. There is _no_ way that they are going to release
software, and then sue someone who uses it better than they.
If you use the software, you are responsible for its effects.
> Well, that's a possible reasoning, but how can you be sure that the
> second sentence is not just another, independently valid, rule?
You can be sure by the common understanding of language. Legalese
doesn't give words strange, arcane, hidden meanings: they can be looked
up in the dictionary. The problem many people have with legalese
is that it includes such particular use of language, so as to exclude
any ambiguity, that the average person, who doesn't process language
that way, but with generalities and associations, suffers brain-bog.
It's my theory that most code-hackers would make good lawyers, if
they weren't so darn rebellious.
--
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