"Michael T. Babcock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Since the author gives no implicit license, we all come down to
> IANAL legal battles over what is implied by his other writings. A
> license would clear (most of) this up -- that's the issue.
A license has the potential to be just as ill-worded, confusing, or
extremely technical as anything else. A clearly worded, easily
supportable legal document would be good, regardless of whether it
were a license.
> > When talking about what might be the correct interpretation of the
> > law, it says "Some people think ..." and "Other people ...". It
> > doesn't say "I think".
>
> He re-iterates specific thoughts in the form of hearsay. The
> overall picture of the file is his theory on implied rights of the
> user of software. Since he does not quote case law (which would be
> valid in the USA or Canada at least) or other legal documents, the
> majority of that file constitues DJB's theories.
Now I understand this, but summing it up as just "Dan's theories" is
misleading. (I, for one, was misled.) He's describing others'
theories. His descriptions may or may not be accurate, but the
theories themselves are not Dan's. The descriptions are his, and you
might call them theories too, but that's how you got me confused.
> > Are you saying that these are simply false statements, and that no
> > one actually holds the views that Dan says some do?
>
> That's not necessary for what I said originally, and you know it
I didn't know that, because I misunderstood you.
> -- so its not worth a flame-war, is it?
No, so it's a good thing we haven't started one.
> In fact, there's no guarantee that any document would form a legally
> binding contract as contracts must be accepted by both parties in
> many (most?) countries and "click" style licensing has proven not
> binding in some countries.
Right. So a non-contractual license wouldn't necessarily be better
than a non-contractual, non-license legal statement.
> This is a point the GPL (just an example) makes by reminding the
> user that they can either accept the license as given, or ignore it,
> but if they choose to ignore it, they get no rights whatsoever to
> modification or redistribution.
Yes, although that statement is incorrect WRT modification, AFAICT.
> > If I really cared, I'd want a signed document from the University.
> > Otherwise, the present situation is as good as any other.
>
> The present situation is clearly not as good as a well-written license and
> disclaimer.
The present documents are as good as a license *for some purposes*.
For other purposes, such as packaging, we'd want irrevocable
permission to redistribute. But this permission need not take the
form of a license, and a license need not grant that permission. The
ideas are compatible, and often come together, but they're orthogonal.
I'll agree that a disclaimer might be beneficial in either case for
good-faith purposes; I don't know enough to support or refute that.
paul
