For Approval: BSD License, PostgreSQL Variant

[dlw]

>  But the GPL itself states that "the recipient automatically receives
>  a license from the original licensors". How come that the GPL
>  relicensors pretend to be "the original licensors" of SimPL'd work

The GPL purports to bind "all third parties" to the terms of the GPL 
license. Unfortunately the Supreme Court of the United States in 2002 
reaffirmed a fundamental principle of contract law prohibiting the 
parties to a contract from binding nonparties. See EEOC v. Waffle House, 
Inc./, 534 U.S. 279, 294 (2002) ("It goes without saying that a contract 
cannot bind a nonparty.").

Professor Robert P. Merges of the Berkeley Law School noted this 
problems in his "The End of Friction? Property Rights and Contract in 
the 'Newtonian' World of On-Line Commerce" (12 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 115), 
in which he describes the GPL as "informal (i.e., not legally 
enforceable) restrictions on digital content."

GPL advocates pretend the GPL is not a contract. They insist that the 
"the recipient automatically receives
a license from the original licensors" statement cures the obvious lack 
of  privity with "all third parties" in
their GPL "license that is not a contract". --- It's a pretend world in 
the GNU Republic.

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