RMS on Plan 9 license, with my comments

[Matthew C. Weigel]

On Sun, 23 Jul 2000, David Johnson wrote:

> On Sun, 23 Jul 2000, Matthew Weigel wrote:
> 
> > Is there a problem with deleting the word reasonable?  Are you simply
> > arguing that it doesn't need to be deleted, that it's too small detail to
> > matter?  Because we don't know what reasonable might mean in a court
> > room, and it might make a difference.
> 
> With or without the word "reasonable", this clause is in accordance
> with the OSD and the Free Software definition. Other clauses are
> different matter.

Yes, I know.  But 'passable' and 'good' are different things.  I would like
to know, though, how Bell Labs people feel about the clause... because if
they have a reason for keeping it, they should.  Unless they make changes
elsewhere, I don't think it should be certified, and they shouldn't worry
about this until other things are taken care of.  I don't think the other
contestable portions of the licnese need much discussion; no one has
defended them as meeting the definition.  I've seen lots of people say "it's
open enough, who cares if it's certified" on comp.os.plan9, but that's a
separate argument.

> > Why don't you have to 'interpret every software license according to
> > what a judge or jury....'?  Legal precendence is a part of deciding what
> > licenses do, and deciding what licenses do is part of deciding whether
> > they're OSI Certified or not.
> 
> I don't, and can't, interpret them that way, because I am not a
> mind-reader. I've seen enough legal decision, and sat on enough juries,
> to know that the legal process is far from objective.  If there is
> prior precedence on the definition of "reasonable charges", then I'll
> go with that, but I might as well read the tea-leaves than try to
> guess what a future jury might do.

I can't understand this.  You agree, completely, that we don't know (barring
someone doing legal research) what 'reasonable fee' means.  And then you
argue that as long as the definition of an ephemeral word is not contested,
there's no problem, we should let it stay.  Am I getting this right?  I
don't mean to build a straw man argument... it just looks as if you're
trying to view the language as cut and dried, when it's not.

I would hope some other people comment on this, because I think it's an
important question of what subject matter is important to discuss (that's
the only reason I haven't taken this off the list).

 Matthew Weigel
 Programmer/Student
 weigel+ at pitt.edu