On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 00:24:58 -0700 Sean Kellogg wrote:
> On Saturday 30 June 2007 09:56:44 am Francesco Poli wrote:
> > On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:31:29 +0100 Anthony Towns wrote:
> > > Francesco is not a lawyer,
> >
> > I *explicitly* wrote this disclaimer in my comment message ("The
> > usual disclaimers: IANAL, IANADD."): I cannot understand why you
> > seem to have such fun in pointing fingers at other people and
> > repeating "he/she's not a lawyer!", "he/she's not a Debian
> > developer!"...
>
> Francesco... as I've said on this list before, "IANAL" is not a
> sufficient disclaimer. Nor is saying "this is not legal advice."
Mmmh, I take note: disclaimers are useless.
> There are laws, criminal laws, against the providing of legal advice
> by those who not certified by the Bar Association within the
> jurisdiction the advice is given in. There is no exception provided
> by adding disclaimers, there is only the question of whether or not
> legal advice was given.
>
> You can raise questions as to whether something is, or is not, legal
> advice. But definitive statements like "I wish it could, but I am
> afraid it cannot..." in response to a question about the meaning of a
> particular term in a legal document is arguably legal advice.
I was merely giving my own lay-person opinion about what I think would
be the correct interpretation of a clause in a legal document (after
having explicitly stated that I am not a lawyer).
I'm having a hard time in believing that this is considered providing
legal advice, in Italy or elsewhere...
If only lawyers in their own jurisdictions are legally allowed to give
such answers to questions directed to debian-legal, then I'm afraid the
Debian Project should shut this list down ASAP. Or, at least,
explicitly warn that only lawyers (certified to practice law in *every*
jurisdiction reached by Debian mailing lists!) are allowed to provide
answers. At that point, I think that most threads would become
single-message... :-(
[...]
> Here, on an email list entitled
> "debian-legal" I think one might have a reasonable expectation that
> actual lawyers were providing advice.
The description[1] of the list states:
| debian-legal mailing list
| Copyright, licensing and patent issues
|
| Discussions about legality issues such as copyrights, patents etc.
|
| This list is not moderated; posting is allowed by anyone.
[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/
I have never had the expectation that answers on debian-legal were being
given (only) by actual lawyers. Maybe I have strange expectations or
lack thereof...
>
> To that end, Mr. Towns' continued reminders that you are not, in fact,
> a lawyer, is helpful to those who may be mistaken that you are, as it
> would appear, providing legal advice.
Mmmmh, I take note: disclaimers are useful.
Now, I wonder: if IANAL disclaimers are useless, why HINAL (He Is Not A
Lawyer) disclaimers are useful?!?
Puzzled.
--
http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html
Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through?
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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