Re: Bug#164874: mobilemesh: recommends non-free package
On Tue, Oct 15, 2002 at 08:51:10PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> It sounds like some amateur who doesn't understand copyright law wrote
> this license, or MITRE should get their money back from whatever lawyer
> wrote this.
Not necessarily. I've noticed that many contracts have unenforcible
clauses in them. This seems to stem from four reasons:
- The law may change in the future, thus activating the clauses.
- The person signing the contract may not understand that the clauses
are unenforcible, and might thus abide by them anyway.
- Consistently claiming more rights than the law really gives can (in
the long run) change the public perception of what the law says --
so they won't be much alarmed when the law is changed to match this
perception. I'm fairly sure that at least the copyright industry
and shampoo manufacturers are doing this deliberately.
- Consistently adding clauses can mess with the legal system's
"reasonable man" standard. Example: Today it would be very hard to
claim that you didn't expect a shrinkwrap license to be lurking in
the box. Similar bad things have happened to "reasonable expectation
of privacy".
Richard Braakman
(always trying to out-cynic Branden)
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