Re: Desert Island Test [Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL]
Sean Kellogg wrote:
> Even in the civil law societies
> (most of continental Europe and Japan) the law has been adopted from the
> United States post World War II, especially in the area of contract law where
> global economies have force a homogenization of the law.
In my experience this homogenization is mostly in the contracts
themselves, not in the underlying laws. We recently had a discussion
over the whole "consideration" thing (or lack thereof) that is
needed under common law, but not in civil law countries.
> It does raise an interesting question though. If Debian strives to be "legal"
> in every corner of the globe regardless of the laws there, how do we approach
> countries where copyright law prohibits the sharing of software? Such a
Thankfully, copyright law is much more harmonized than contract law.
You have more or less the same rights as an author in every country
in the world. So it's certainly possible to draft a license that
grants comparable permissions in every jurisdiction.
I'm not aware of any law that forbids the author to grant
world-wide, royalty-free licenses to any user/distributor
of the software.
There are some things that are different between jurisdiction,
such as the European concept of moral rights that an author
cannot give up, or the definition of "derivative work". But
what I've seen in software disputes is that judges tend to
consider verdicts from other countries, since they feel it
is important to harmonize with these other countries (and
probably also because that means they have to study fewer
technical details).
Arnoud
--
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
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