[License-discuss] [License-review] in opposition of 'choice of law' provisions in FOSS licenses (was: For Approval: Open Logistics License v1.2)

[Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz]

> David Wooley wrote:  "Laws can change..".

Indeed, but note that copyright law is quite remarkably stable. In EU,
principles were fixed more than 30 years ago by the first Directive
1991/250/EEC on the legal protection of computer program.

> David Wooley wrote that depending on when the contract was formed
(downloading date, according to him), "a later recipient may have different
laws applied".

If this is true, this applies in all circumstances, with or without
specifying a choice of law. But in fact it is not true: when entering into
force, new regulations (like, i.e., the GDPR) apply to all running
contracts, regardless of their date of formation. In addition, in the the
open source practice, a licence and all of its terms and conditions
(including choice of law, if any) is accepted by exercising any rights
granted to the recipient, meaning that the initial downloading date is not
especially relevant.



Le mer. 21 déc. 2022 à 12:35, David Woolley <forums at david-woolley.me.uk> a
écrit :

> On 21/12/2022 10:50, Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz via License-discuss wrote:
> > So any idea of banning choice of law clauses will raise serious issues,
> at
> > least in the EU.
>
> Laws can change.  I wonder if, if choice of law is allowed, whether
> there should be a requirement to specify the point in time from which
> those laws should be drawn.
>
> I don't know what the default is, but I suspect it might be the contract
> date.  Whether contracts exist at all in the supply of Open Source, is
> an open question, but if they do, I'd suggest that the contract isn't
> formed by when the software is released, but when it is downloaded,
> etc., meaning that a later recipient may have different laws applied.
>
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-- 
Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz
pe.schmitz at gmail.com
tel. + 32 478 50 40 65
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