For Approval: mindmason license (MML)

[Forrest J. Cavalier III]

Stephan Meyer wrote:

> 
> Am 02.09.2004 um 17:57 schrieb Forrest J. Cavalier III:
> 
>> Stephan Meyer wrote:
>>
>>> Am 02.09.2004 um 17:06 schrieb Forrest J. Cavalier III:
>>>
>>>> I see your 2 III as being in conflict with the OSD on its face.
>>>>   "Licensee is not entitled to grant rights pertaining to the 
>>>> Program to third persons. "
>>
>>
>> The GPL is a permission license under copyright laws.  You are offering a
>> contract, so your comparison to the GPL is interesting, but not 
>> persuasive.
> 
> 
> Section 2 III MML has no relevance in a permission license because then 
> the person who downloads the software is not granted a right by the 
> person who offers the download (the previous Licensee).
> 
> The person offering the download is allowed to do so by section 2 II 
> MML, which reads:
> "(II) Licensor grants Licensee four rights: To use, to copy, to 
> distribute and to modify the Program. [...] He grants Licensee the right 
> to [...] distribute copies made."
> 

I think you have not responded to the point I was trying to make.

You do not have a permission license, you have written an offer of contract.
Contracts are formed only in certain ways.

So...

If I have accepted your contract, it forbids me from granting "rights pertaining
to the program to third persons". Then it seems I am prohibited from running the
software as a web service, allowing others to use the software via HTTP, for example.
(It is not relevant that your application would not lend itself to this.  The
OSI approves LICENSES, not products.  The license must be able to be applied to
any web server product, for example.)

Also, (and this may not be your intent, and you may make slight wording changes to
resolve it,) if the contract forbids me from granting "rights pertaining to the
program to third persons", then how does a third person ever get a license to run my
modifications?