(OT) - Major Blow to Copyleft Theory

[Alexander Terekhov]

On 8/28/07, Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu> wrote:
> Chris Travers wrote:
> > In my view, the large issue with the Artistic License (and the BSD
> > License, and others) is that, unlike the *vast majority* of copyright
> > licenses, there is no expectation on return of any sort from the license
> > itself.
>
> That's not really correct.  It says, "provided that you duplicate all of
> the original copyright notices and associated disclaimers.", "place your
> modifications in the Public Domain or otherwise make them Freely
> Available" OR "rename any non-standard executables so the names do not
> conflict with standard executables, which must also be provided" OR
> [other choices], etc.
>
> > Thus while the *vast majority* of copyright licenses provide an
> > exchange of promises, some do not.
>
> I disagree.  Every FOSS license provides an exchange of promises

Exactly. Every FOSS license is an ordinary contract with a bunch of
covenants for both parties, very broad scope of grant, and no
"conditions precedent". Conditions precedent are generally disfavored.

regards,
alexander.