Question regarding a new local license approach

[Walter van Holst]

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:31:21 -0500, John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com> wrote:

> I know little of civil law, but even common lawyers aren't very used,
> most of them, to the idea of a license that is not supported by contract,
> a bare license.  So the concept may exist even if it is relatively
> unfamiliar.

In Dutch law you can construe something along the lines of a bare
license for 'normal' copyrighted works, but you run into all sorts of
trouble when it comes to software, thanks to the rather unsatisfactory
compromise that is called the EU software directive. On top of that,
in order to limit liability and warranties (oh, and BTW, there is no
difference between warranties, implied warranties and guarantees in
Dutch law, it is all either a guarantee or it isn't), you need a
contract. It is just impossible to have a user surrender rights to
claim damages by using a bare license. There has to be a point where
the user can agree to the license or not (and there are restrictions
on the extent to which those rights can be surrendered in a contract).

Regards,

 Walter