Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...
** David Nusinow ::
> If someone is going to file a lawsuit, someone has to pay for it.
> If the two sides live in different places, one of them has to
> travel no matter what, and thus pay for that expense. If we say
> that choice of venue clauses aren't Free, then the person bringing
> the suit will very likely have to travel and pay the fee (or
> that's my interpretation of Humberto and Michael Poole's
> responses). If not, then the person defending the suit will have
> to pay the fee. Either way, there is a cost involved. Why are we
> choosing sides if such a cost can't be avoided?
Because:
1. it's greater the probability that the licensee is poorer than the
licensor;
2. the definition of "user" (as in "we care about our users") fits
the licensee better than the licensor -- even if it also fits the
licensor; and, finally
3. in the case of a fork (fork == GOOD(TM)) people can end up with a
license that make BOTH the licensee and the licensor pay some
(possibly hefty) cost to litigate the terms of the license.
Example of #3 above: I start a (small) companya that distributes a
fork of Mozilla -- under MPL1.1 -- , with a lot of improvements.
Someone in Argentina forks my fork, and disobeys some of MPL's
rules. Now, to prosecute that someone, I have to travel to
California -- because I also agreed to the venue of the MPL 1.1.
Worse yet, someone in my home town could be the culprit, and I would
still have to go California to prosecute him... probably.
This does not seem Free Software to me.
--
HTH,
Massa
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