Re: Desert Island Test [Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL]
On Mon, 12 Jul 2004, Sean Kellogg wrote:
> On Monday 12 July 2004 11:45 am, Don Armstrong wrote:
> > While the imagery of a computer programmer sitting on a lonely
> > desert isle hacking away with their solar powered computer,
> > drinking coconuts, and recieving messages in bottles might be
> > silly, the rights that such a gedanken is protecting are anything
> > but.
>
> Not to argue against the intent of the Desert Island Test, but at
> least in the United States, such a freedom is provided by the
> law/courts, not the license.
I'm not familiar with the logic behind this.[1] Could you perhaps
elucidate and provide references to case law?
I would imagine that you could get terms of a contract that were
impossible to fulfill thrown out, but I've not aware of a license term
being set aside because it was impractical to fulfill that term,
especially when the license is granting you rights which you did not
posess in the first place. (That is to say, rights beyond fair use.)
[Ignoring for now the obvious rejoinder that Debian is not just a US
centric project.]
Don Armstrong
1: Not that this is a particularly unique case of my lack of
understanding...
--
<Clint> why the hell does kernel-source-2.6.3 depend on xfree86-common?
<infinity> It... Doesn't?
<Clint> good point
http://www.donarmstrong.com
http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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