Re: Question about the old BSD license and GPL (gtkipmsg)
"Chloe Hoffman" <chloehoffman@hotmail.com> writes:
> By this distinction are you suggesting that all clauses that cause the
> licensee to forego rights are unenforceable e.g. limitation of
> liability? I would not think too many open source developers would be
> happy with that scenario. Aren't they all relying on the effectiveness
> of the limitation of liability clause? In any event, the BSD
> advertising clause seems to me to be a condition of the unilateral
> distribution, modification, etc. license and so no compliance with
> that condition suggest to me no authority under that distribution,
> modification, etc. license (see
> http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/COPYRIGHT2.html#5).
No, I'm not making any such broadly sweeping statement. I'm talking
about specifically those kinds of advertising clauses, on public
licenses (as opposed to contracts), when they act in such a way that
might inhibit or otherwise discourage the accurate statement of what
the product is. I don't know all the details, but I'm not saying
arbitrarily insane generalizations of what I said; I'm only saying
what I actually said.
> I fail to see the "first amendment" reasons. Violation of the First
> Amendment to the U.S. Constitution typically requires state action. To
> me this is a contract matter between private parties - I don't see
> state action.
The enforcement of a contract is a state action. Of course this case
isn't a contract. In this case, the state action is would be
enforcing the copyright against someone who copied the software but
not in accord with the terms of the public licenses.
Thomas
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