Cherry-picking license proposals

[Dave J Woolley]

> From:	Carter Bullard [SMTP:carter at qosient.com]
> 
> Is the OSI trying to make a determination that two
> different legal documents are functionally equivalent?
> 
	[DJW:]  As I understand it, they are determining 
	whether the licence is a member of the set of 
	possible "open source" licences. 

> The place to define the liabilities and remedies is in the
> license.  My companies license has some detail in this area.
> 
	[DJW:]  IANAL, but I believe that it can only be
	done in a contract.  Many "licenses" are actually
	both a licence and a contract, and some of the
	arguments about shrink wrapped licences are about
	whether a contract actually exists.  In English, law
	contracts require an offer, acceptance of that offer
	and a consideration (something given in return). It
	would probably help if "open source" licenses that 
	attempt to go beyond a statement of permissions 
	explicitly identified all three components.
[DJW:]  

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