Discuss: The Open-Source Milestone Application Framewor

[Forrest J. Cavalier III]

"Akil Franklin" <afranklin at techMilestone.com> wrote:

> Forrest J. Cavalier III [mailto:mibsoft at mibsoftware.com] wrote:
> 
> > Notifying a specific entity requires that the entity exists.  This
> > may not be the case in 10 years, or next week (which is not an
> > insult, just a statement of the risk that an adopter will recognize.)
> > 
> > Secondly, requiring a specific method of notification requires that
> > the method is available.  This could allow the licensor to control
> > who can use the method, which is a clear OSD violation.
> 
> Excellent points. The main issue seems to be "what happens when
> Milestone goes out of business or changes their URL?"
> 
> It seems to me that we can fix this issue by amending a few conditions
> to the clause. How about the following:

[snip]

Yes, better, but...

What about the second issue?  You could run a firewall which
excludes access based on IP address you select, or other
criteria (browsers?)  You could reject email based on criteria
you choose.  

The "No Separate License" clause of the OSD should be (and
is) interpreted broadly.  Requiring signing up on a web page
is requiring a separate license.  

Even if you provide an outlet clause in the case of unavailability,
it is not going to be OSD compliant.   

Even if such a clause would pass the OSD, what does "unavailable
to the global internet" mean?  If 1 site cannot reach it does
that count as unavailable to the global internet?  If "unavailable
to the global internet" means that no sites can reach you, how
does anyone know?  To a specific observer, how is "destination
unreachable" distinguished from a firewall which black-holes
traffic from certain IPs?  To a specific observer, how is
"no response" distinguished from a Distributed denial of
service against your servers for 15 days?

What defense does someone have if they say they registered, but
you say they did not?  You can have legally binding agreements
which happen over the web, but it isn't simple.

I am starting to think that this license and these clauses
would benefit from further review by legal counsel before
it is resubmitted.

Forrest

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