On Mon, 08 Sep 2003, Steve Langasek wrote: > There is nothing in the law that I've seen which prevents someone > from authoring and distributing a piece of software on principles > other than those governing leases; and no license that passes the > DFSG could ever be predicated on a lease, given that modification and > redistribution are essential freedoms. I don't really see an issue with a lease that grants the freedom to redistribute and to modify. At least, I am awhere of no clause in Contract Law prohibiting such a lease. > Thus, they'd be treated differently under the law by virtue of the > fact that they *are* different. What I'm still missing is a tested mechanism besides a lease where we can grant rights to use, modify, and redistribute subject to conditions. I can't think of another way to frame such a license besides the background of a contract or a lease. Perhaps I'm just not seeing or understanding clearly, but so far no one who claims that free software licenses are neither a lease nor a contract (at least in the US) has explained what type of legal agreement they would be. All the cases that I'm aware of apply the tests of a contract to licenses. > Also, the UCITA has been happily rejected by a fair number of the > states where it was originally proposed and is being disputed > elsewhere, so it's not much of a precedent. True. I was merely using it to point out the direction that statute seems to be headed. There are clauses of UCITA that I really dislike, and I'm glad it hasn't been made law everywhere. But it does embody a substantial amount of current legal thought. Don Armstrong -- "People selling drug paraphernalia ... are as much a part of drug trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide." -- John Brown, DEA Chief http://www.donarmstrong.com http://www.anylevel.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
Attachment:
pgp1K5y7_fE7J.pgp
Description: PGP signature