Re: Academic Free License (was: Re: RFS: The bobcat library, stealth and bisonc++)
George Danchev <danchev@spnet.net>
> -legal,
> Could you please comment on AFL v. 2.1 as found at:
> http://opensource.org/licenses/afl-2.1.php
> this will serve as a future reference as well
In general, please quote licence texts inline for ease of commentary.
However, in this case, please check the archives for past references:
The Academic Free License v2.1 was studied in October 2004.
As far as I could tell, the problems were:
- Grant of Source Code License requires shipping *all* available docs;
- Same section apparently restricts the Licensor, which is bizarre;
- Attribution Notices may be unmodifiable sections in all but name;
- Acceptance and Termination is vague click-wrap - a lawyerbomb;
- Termination For Patent Action is too broadly contaminating;
- Venue is a pain, requiring everyone involved to be ready to travel;
- Governing Law may pull in almost all the world's copyright laws!;
- Attorneys Fees seeks to modify normal jurisdiction practice;
- it's a common-law contract more than a licence: buyer beware!
AFL is non-copyleft, so I'd suggest using new BSD, MIT/X11 or zlib instead
(rather than the GPL, which is copyleft).
Hope that helps,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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