On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 8:09 PM, Russ Nelson <r...@cloudmade.com> wrote: > On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:54 PM, Matt Amos wrote: >> us trying to read a complex license >> without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without >> comments. > > They're mostly hard to read because they're tedious in their detail. Legal > writing isn't actually THAT impenetrable, if you can stay awake (no, > seriously, I can only read 2-3 licenses at a time before I start to nod off. > Takes me DAYS to read all the OSI-approved licenses).
and, as has been pointed out by steve and others, you can't 100% understand a license unless you also understand the case law. so it seems to me that some extra information (comments, advice - call it what you will) is needed for those of us without 7-8 years of law school and an army of paralegals. > Yes, well, since a legal document is written for a customer, the lawyer > explains it in confidence to the customer. Everyone else is supposed to > rely on the text of the license itself. Or, at least, that's my experience > of how it's supposed to go. I may be wrong. i guess its difficult having a whole community with varied opinions as a "customer". with a single customer the question "well, what do you want it to be like?" can be sensibly and quickly answered... does anyone know if a similar situation arises in class action lawsuits? cheers, matt _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
