[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: ISDA CDS Standard Model Public Licence v0.1



Guillaume Yziquel <guillaume.yziquel@citycable.ch> wrote:
> Walter Landry a écrit :
>> Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
>>> 6. Indemnity for Use of ISDA CDS Standard Model in Derivative Works.
>>>
>>> You hereby agree to indemnify Licensor for any liability incurred by
>>> the
>>> Licensor as a result of the distribution, purchase, sale or use of
>>> Your
>>> Derivative Work.
>> The view of the ftpmasters on indemnification are still a mystery to
>> me.  My copy of
>>   /usr/share/doc/xserver-xorg-video-v4l/copyright
>> has
>>   11. Indemnity. Recipient shall be solely responsible for damages
>>   arising, directly or indirectly, out of its utilization of rights
>>   under this License.  Recipient will defend, indemnify and hold
>>   harmless Silicon Graphics, Inc.  from and against any loss,
>>   liability, damages, costs or expenses (including the payment of
>>   reasonable attorneys fees) arising out of Recipient's use,
>>   modification, reproduction and distribution of the Subject Software
>>   or out of any representation or warranty made by Recipient.
>> so either xserver-xorg-video-v4l has to be removed or the ftpmasters
>> think it is ok.
> 
> First of all, I wish to state that I do not speak nor work for
> Markit. That being said, it seems to me that this is a different
> matter.
> 
> The X11 indemnification is "the user agrees". The ISDA CDS is "the
> (re)distributor agrees" which is a fundamentally different issue.

The X11 indemnification applies to

  Recipient's use, modification, reproduction and distribution

so I do not see the difference.

> However, the intent is rather different, I believe (I'm not trying to
> push the licence forward, just to clarify things): This model is used
> to price CDS, which are, well, financial products that have burnt and
> will probably still burn many financial institutions. So they have a
> legitimate point in saying "if you fool around with our model, and
> distribute it to a client of yours, well do not hold us accountable".

No, that is not quite what it is saying.  That would be more like a NO
WARRANTY clause.

> Nonetheles, it seems to me that this applies only to Derivative Works,
> not to the original software itself. So it could possibly be OK to
> distribute within Debian only the original, while letting the
> recipients free to use, modify, redistribute derived works at will.

If Debian can not distribute modified versions of the software, I
could hardly call if DFSG-free.

> I'm not trying to push this licence forward, as I mentionned
> earlier. Just wondering if it may be not too stupid to package it
> myself, in the hope of potentially seeing it in Debian one day,
> "practical" issues set aside.

It depends on your point of view.  Some of the things you call
practical I would call ideological.  

> I also wanted to have advice on this licence because I was surprised
> to see a licence on a financial software distributed by a financial
> company, that did seem to be free software. Borderline, perhaps, but
> nonetheless.

There are many ways that this license could fail.  For a more definite
answer you would have to ask the ftp-masters directly.

Cheers,
Walter Landry
wlandry@caltech.edu


Reply to: