Zeratec Public License

[Mark Wells]

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On Tue, 13 Jul 1999, Pat St. Jean wrote:

> On 13 Jul 1999 bruce at perens.com wrote:
> 
> >My main criticism is that some of the language is _oblique_ and should be
> >phrased as a "permission" rather than an "understanding". The license is meant
> >to be executed by programmers, not attorneys, and thus should be as clear and
> >unambiguous as possible.
> 
> I must disagree here.  It isn't the programmer in the court room defending
> your rights from someone violating the license.  Clear and unambiguous is
> a good thing, but in my opinion that should be from a legal standpoint,
> not necessarily an end user's.  If you're in doubt as to what is said, you
> should contact your attorney and have hir clarify it.

I think Bruce mis-stated his point to some extent, but he's right.  A 
license written in terms of 'understandings' rather than specific
assignment of permissions to the licensee is ambiguous.  This makes it
both harder for the end user (as opposed to the lawyers) to understand
*and* harder to enforce.  When Bruce said that "the license is meant to be
executed by programmers, not attorneys", I think he meant that attorneys
would know the legal significance of an 'understanding' in a contract,
but programmers wouldn't, so to be safe they'd have to hire an attorney.
It's one of the effects of ambiguity.

Another effect is that the contract may be harder to enforce.  It seems
that you'd have a hard time proving that someone had the same
'understanding' that you had about the terms of the license.  Of course,
I'm not a lawyer, so I can't speak with certainty here.  See?  It really
*is* hard for non-attorneys to understand.

> What, you don't have an attorney?  And you're entering in to a legally
> binding business relationship with someone?

I didn't have to have my attorney read the GPL before I agreed to it,
because the GPL is unambiguous.  It says, "You are allowed to use, modify,
and redistribute in original or modified form."  It doesn't say anything
is 'understood'.  It assumes the end user understands nothing at all, and
then proceeds to spell it out.

> Note, I do not practice law.  Through my folks I've met quite a few, in
> many different areas of specialization, usually by working on their
> networks. This is the one consistent piece of advice I've always gotten:
> 
> "Always read before you sign.  If you don't understand it, have someone
> who does advise you."

That's why it's important for the license to be unambiguous.  You don't
want the individual programmer who downloads your code and thinks of a new
feature to add to have to hire an attorney at $200 per hour to read the
license and make sure it would be legal for him to redistribute his
modifications under the GPL.
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