Question on OSD #5

[Lawrence Rosen]

> I hadn't realize that was in MPL 1.1.  The issue I have with the clause
> is that it may encourage the idea that the license is negotiable.

Every license is negotiable--at least with the copyright owner. That is one
basis for successful business models.

Statutes and regulations always trump the license. I no longer believe that
provisions like Jabber s. 5 and MPL 1.1 s. 4 are actually needed in open
source licenses. None of my licenses say that any more. Licensees are simply
expected to obey the law and not to distribute software if doing so would
violate the law. It is not the role of the license to educate about that
obvious fact.

/Larry



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Flaschen [mailto:matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 5:07 PM
> To: License Discuss
> Subject: Re: Question on OSD #5
> 
> Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> > As the author of the now-deprecated Jabber license, I can tell you that
> > there is nothing particularly unique about that Section 5. Here is the
> same
> > concept in the Mozilla 1.1 license, which the Jabber license at the time
> > attempted to emulate:
> 
> I hadn't realize that was in MPL 1.1.  The issue I have with the clause
> is that it may encourage the idea that the license is negotiable.
> 
> Matt Flaschen