AW: For Approval: German Free Software License

Russell Nelson nelson at crynwr.com
Wed Nov 24 20:28:42 UTC 2004


Axel Metzger writes:

 > You answered only to my last argument. My first and major point is
 > that OSI should treat the non-compliance of license version 2 if
 > this case will occur.  I do not see that this is a problem of
 > version 1.

The trouble is that you require version 1 users to upgrade to version
2, whether it complies or not.  You *could* require version 1 users to
upgrade to version 2 if OSI approves version 2.

Even so, my understanding of contract law is that you cannot agree to
agree.  You cannot write an agreement that says that we will agree to
comply with terms as yet unwritten.  Maybe contract law is different
in Germany?  If your license ends up with terms that 1) don't apply to
non-German distributors, and 2) for the German distributors, the terms
do not conflict with the OSD, then we will approve that license
because everyone gets terms that comply with the OSD.

 > I do not see any legal guaranty that FSF will meet any criteria of the
 > OSI-Definition when writing the GPL V3. Did this hinder OSI to certify GPL
 > V2? No. 

The GPL V2 does not bind distributors to switching to the GPL V3.

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