Re: discussion with the FSF: GPLv3, GFDL, Nexenta

[Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>]

On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 05:09:57PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Mon, 04 Jun 2007, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > If you get sued and convicted as a private person in a jurisdiction that
> > is not yours, there are two possible outcomes:
> > * You try to defend yourself, and might win or lose depending on the
> >   case. If you go to the jurisdiction where you are being sued, the end
> >   result might be that enforcement is likely.
> > * You do nothing, and nothing happens
> 
> I'm not sure what any of this has to do with choice of venue;

By itself, nothing. But in a lawsuit in the context of a license with a
choice-of-venue clause, either you live in the jurisdiction that is
claimed in the license (in which case not much changes wrt what would be
the case if there were no choice-of-venue clause in the first place), or
you do not (in which case the above is appropriate).

> the only thing choice of venue alters is your ability to stop the case
> in the initial phases by advertising that venue is improper in that
> jursidiction, not your ability to decide that ignoring German law is
> the appropriate tactic.

What I was trying to show is that the relevance of a copyright case
brought against you in a jurisdiction outside of your immediate concern
is zero, for all practical matters; that means you can simply ignore it,
and nothing Bad will happen. Therefore, I don't think it makes it
anything even remotely representing non-freeness.

If you are a company or other organization which is large enough that
choice-of-venue clauses do matter, then you probably do have contacts
with a lawyer in the appropriate jurisdiction whom you can ask to
represent you, anyway.

[...]
> [Who has no idea if these sorts of clauses even work in Germany or
> Belgium]

Seen how the Belgian Government wrote the first license in
/usr/share/doc/libbeid2/copyright (in particular section 6.3 of that
license), I guess they do.

-- 
Shaw's Principle:
	Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will
	want to use it.