Question regarding certification

[Bastin, Fabian]

The question that a license is or is not a contract is complicated, and country dependent. In Belgium, law researchers from the CRID (http://www.crid.be, in French) have studied different open-source licenses. For them, with respect to the Belgian legislation, we have to interpret open-source licenses as contracts, even in the GPL case (there is differences of perception between latin legislation and american leglislation). The same should be true for most European Countries.

Regards,

Fabian


-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan at reutershealth.com]
Sent: 11 November 2004 14:48
To: Walter van Holst
Cc: license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: Question regarding certification


Walter van Holst scripsit:

>  I have a question regarding the certification process. Almost all OSS
> licenses assume that there doesn't exist a contract between the
> copyright holder and the end user of OSS since no consideration passes
> hands.

Actually, that's questionable on several different grounds.  Only the
GPL explicitly says it is not a contract; BSD-ish licenses aren't
either, but since they are basically just waivers, there's no need to
be (at least in common-law countries); most of the corporate licenses
as well as the AFL and OSL are explicitly contracts.

What's more, consideration is something courts can very easily find;
IMHO, consideration nowadays is as much a matter of form as seal.
Getting to use valuable software for nothing is probably plenty of
consideration.  (IANAL, TINLA.)

> At the same time all OSS licenses do not give any warranty
> whatsoever and reduce liabilities in a rather rigorous manner.

Proprietary licenses do the same.  Personally, I would have no problem
with an exception for malice.

> how complicated would the OSI certification process get?

As complicated as any stereotypical lawyer could hope for.  :-)

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