Re: PHP non-free or wrongly named?
Lewis Jardine <debian@catbox.co.uk> wrote: [...]
> Having just reread your post again, I think I realise what you are
> saying. Because they wrote the 'condition' as "Products derived from
> this software may not be called "PHP", nor may "PHP" appear in their
> name, without prior written permission from group@php.net." instead of
> "Either a)The name of the product does not contain 'PHP' OR b) the name
> of the product contains 'PHP' AND the licensee has prior written
> permission from group@php.net", the condition is always self-evidently true.
Now I'm not sure what you're saying here. I think they're
just pointing out that you do not have permission and they
are the ones to give permission.
> If this is the case, do you not think that your interpretation goes
> against both the obvious intended meaning of the condition, and the fact
> that the same wording convention is used in the other conditions of this
> license? Courts usually favour what the licensor meant-it-to-mean (when
> this is obvious to a reasonable person) rather than what they actually
> ended up saying.
I think the obvious intended meaning is another assertion of
representation norms. The other conditions of this licence use
"must" not "may". To what wording convention do you refer? Are
you claiming that if I wrote "Fred runs; Jane runs; Tom walks;
Belinda runs" then I really mean "Tom runs" because it follows
a similar language pattern as the other clauses?
If you are troubled by what the licensor means and the limits
of the rights they assert, ask them.
> Under this interpretation, all clauses of the BSD license could be
> treated as statements of self-evident facts, thus making them all true,
> and the entire license a blanket permission grant. This is not a common
> or correct interpretation, however.
No, there's two directions ("must") and one statement ("may").
> If this is not the case, I apologise for wasting your time.
Thank you. It's not a total waste, as it throws the difference
into sharp relief, I think.
--
MJR/slef
http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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