Re: issues with the AGPL
Florian Weimer writes: > * Miriam Ruiz: > > > All that is for USA, right? Do you know whether it works that way in > > other countries than USA, and probably UK, Canada and Australia too? > > There is no such thing as a unilateral contract in Germany. Nor anywhere, AFAIK. The idea is not to enter a contract, but to unilaterally grant permissions otherwise reserved. The common meaning of “license” essentially means “permission”, after all. > Over here, free software licenses are typically considered invitations > to enter licensing contracts, according to the terms in those > licenses. That's a shame, since that's counter to (my unserstanding of) the intention: to unilaterally grant license to someone who would not otherwise have it. > The net effect is still the same, I think. If you reject the offer, > you haven't got a license. No, that's not the case for a unilateral grant of license. There's no offer being made, and therefore no agreement to be entered into; the recipient doesn't have to agree to do anything to have the specific permissions granted by the license terms. However, any actions *not* licensed are outside the grant, and are covered by relevant law. -- \ “It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one | `\ trifling exception, is composed of others.” —John Andrew Holmes | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: issues with the AGPL
On Sat, 2009-08-22 at 12:43 -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 02:31:38PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: > > > > All that is for USA, right? Do you know whether it works that way in > > > other countries than USA, and probably UK, Canada and Australia too? > > > There is no such thing as a unilateral contract in Germany. > > There's no such thing as a unilateral contract anywhere else either. A > license is not a contract. There's an excellent discussion on the finer points of this distinction (albeit under U.S. law) in Jacobsen v. Katzer, 535 F.3d 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2008). I have the opinion if anyone wants to read it (not sure how accessible it is outside a legal research database subscription). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: issues with the AGPL
On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 02:31:38PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: > > All that is for USA, right? Do you know whether it works that way in > > other countries than USA, and probably UK, Canada and Australia too? > There is no such thing as a unilateral contract in Germany. There's no such thing as a unilateral contract anywhere else either. A license is not a contract. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: issues with the AGPL
* Miriam Ruiz: > All that is for USA, right? Do you know whether it works that way in > other countries than USA, and probably UK, Canada and Australia too? There is no such thing as a unilateral contract in Germany. Over here, free software licenses are typically considered invitations to enter licensing contracts, according to the terms in those licenses. The net effect is still the same, I think. If you reject the offer, you haven't got a license. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
