Re: ocaml, QPL and the DFSG: Choice of venue argumentation.

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sun, Jul 25, 2004 at 10:16:08AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 23, 2004 at 12:25:16PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> >>Sven Luther writes:
> >>>>The usual explanation is that it discriminates against people outside
> >>>
> >>>Well, any licence allowing the user to be sued discriminate against people not
> >>>having the time or money to play legal games.
> >>
> >>That is why most licenses don't bother to mention lawsuits at all:
> > 
> > Ok, and has it occured to you that this point of law clause could also be used
> > for people suing the upstream author over the licence ? 
> 
> See the comment in
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg00197.html about the
> distinction between "If you sue us over this software, you must do so in
> this jurisdiction" and "If we sue you over this software, you must
> defend yourself in this jurisdiction" (the former being fine), and the
> replies from MJ Ray and Nathanael Nerode agreeing with that assessment.

I think the main point in that mail was (from you) :

  I suspect that one of the major objections to choice of venue clauses
  (as opposed to choice of law clauses) is that they place more of a
  burden on those being sued.  I also suspect that "If you sue us over
  this software, you must do so in this jurisdiction" would be far less
  problematic than "If we sue you over this software, you must defend
  yourself in this jurisdiction".  After all, we are much more concerned
  about being sued than about the ability to sue the author.

Right ? The last sentence is in fact symptomatic here. We are soo much
concerned with the risk of being sued abusively, that we lose sight of the
possibilities of suing the author, or the posibility of licence violation.

I am not sure this is really sane, but as said, in any case, the current DFSG
has nothing to say about the legal case.

Friendly,

Sven Luther