Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
* MJ Ray:
> As I understand it, it limits all those rights by allowing the
> licensor to require out-of-pocket expenditure by any licensee on legal
> representation in the given venue, instead of possibly representing
> yourself in the court local to your offence as seems to happen
> otherwise.
This can be obnoxious, of course, but I fail to see how this could
make software non-free in the DFSG sense. In fact, the DFSG do not
deal with _any_ conflicts that may arise, or with license termination.
If this is a mistake, it should be fixed with a GR changing the DFSG
to whatever is required.
> At worst, some of these venues will grant summary judgment against
> you for not appearing, so it becomes an effective arbitrary
> termination clause.
We can't do anything about that reliably, even if there isn't a choice
of venue clause. The licensor might just look for a court that views
itself responsible, with suitable rules. It's very likely that
copyright infringement on software somehow involves the Internet, so
this strategy should be feasible.
Even an arbitrary termination is not against the wording of the DFSG,
and maybe not even against their original spirit.
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