On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 04:15:47PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: >On 2004-07-12 15:46:16 +0100 Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> wrote: > >>>1. someone can explain why choice of venue can be DFSG-free; >>How is it not, exactly? It does not limit, in any way, your rights to >>use, modify or distribute the software. > >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. At worst, some of these venues will grant summary judgment >against you for not appearing, so it becomes an effective arbitrary >termination clause. At best, we need assurance the chosen venue >doesn't behave in that way. > >I hope that people will correct me if I've misunderstood the case >against these clauses. > >On the other hand, the only case I remember being told for them is >that they "ensure consistency" and give the licensor an advantage. >Neither of those seem particularly relevant in helping explain why it >is acceptable for free software, given the above. Personally, I can understand why lots of licenses contain these clauses. That may shield the licensors from jurisdiction abuse by the licensees, for example. Supposing that the >>There's far too much navel-gazing going on here... > >I don't think that observation helps. There does seem to be a lot of effort being put into inventing extremely contrived arguments in -legal these days to make various licenses look non-free. At the current rate, it won't be long before someone invents a reason to declare the GPL license non-free. That's why more and more developers are losing patience and paying no attention to these discussions any more. -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature