[License-discuss] Does this look like an open source license?

[David Woolley]

On 23/01/15 01:09, ChanMaxthon wrote:
> I was once using straight 3c-BSDL but one incident (I am not from an Anglophone country) proved to me that it's language is too complex in local courts. Now I am sort of forced into creating a functional equivalent using only simple English (definition: restrict word usage to the 3000 basic English word defined by Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary) so this is my first attempt.

You can't expect to do that without creating a significantly longer 
document, as you must make explicit all the nuances of the original 
language.

Legal documents are written in natural languages but have very carefully 
crafted meanings, which often depend on the precise meanings of the 
words chosen.

Whilst the BSD licence is probably relatively easy in this respect, 
longer licences could easily be completely misrepresented.

You can see this in the way the Creative Commons licences are done. 
There is a plain language version to try and give the general public an 
idea of the meaning, but there is also a legal code version, which is 
the one intended to be used by the courts.