On 24 March 2011 13:13, Simon Poole <si...@poole.ch> wrote: > > I was referring to the 1.2.4 French translation > > http://www.osmfoundation.org/images/c/c2/2011-03-08_OSM_Contributor_Terms_1.2.4_FrenchTranslation.pdf > > What you have is the translation of 1.0. > > The issue wrt to the wording is if to use a strong "must not infringe" vs. a > weak "should not infringe" (in the German translation). >
But contractual obligations aren't "strong" or "weak". Can you explain what you think that difference means in terms of the obligations either would impose on a contributor? It may be that German law knows of a difference between strong and weak obligations. English law doesn't (yes there's a distinction between terms which do or do not entitle the other party to repudiate, but we aren't worrying about that here). In other words, the proper question is: what obligation does the English contractor terms place on a contributor, and then translate that obligation into German. I'm not sure how close the existing wording is to one of the various ones I suggested, but the intention is that the first part of 1(a) indicates OSMF's goal, and only the second part imposes an obligation, but as I explained earlier I am not sure that is what it does. Can I suggest that it would be a really really good idea to have the contributor terms drafted in one go by a professional lawyer, rather than bit by bit. I've had various requests to look at specific parts of the wording, but really the contract has to hang together as a whole. What needs to happen is that (whoever it is who makes these decisions) decides what they want the terms to do and then have them drafted to do that. Drafting good legal copy is not something that should be done like a wiki document. I realise everyone works very hard over this, but none of the versions I've seen make me happy in numerous ways. I speak as someone who has entirely no view as to what they should do, but since I draft exactly this kind of contract all the time (and sadly litigate others, though not ones I have drafted), I have quite strong sensibilities about how they should read. My "spare time" is pretty limited and my pro bono effort is directed at various other organisations (My Society, ORG and the One Click Organisation) but just to get this settled I'd be happy to take formal instruction from OSMF to sort this out properly without charge. But I don't want to be a self-publicist. It may be that everyone is happy with the CT's and feels no help is needed. There are almost certainly other (large) law firms that would be happy to offer a free consult so they could associate their name with OSMF's (which is now getting pretty famous). Anyway, I'll see what anyone thinks about that when I am back from holiday. -- Francis Davey _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
