[repost] [j at uriah.heep.sax.de: For Approval: The beer-ware license]

[Russ Nelson]

John Cowan writes:
 > I believe I detect the symptoms of a tongue firmly wedged where it isn't
 > very functional.  Nevertheless:

No more or less than the license, but let's press on.

 > Russ Nelson scripsit:
 > 
 > > You are then obligated to buy Mr. Kamp a beer.  
 > 
 > You are not.  The obligation is only incurred if, in your sole judgement,
 > you consider the code to be worth the price of a beer.

Mmmmm, is that obvious?  What if you merely praise the code?  "Your
Honor, this man publicly praised the code and said it was worth a
million to him.  Surely he could have been bothered to purchase a
single beer, as required by the license."

 > > If you then refuse to buy Mr. Kamp a beer, you lose your license to
 > > the code.
 > 
 > There is no such rescission clause.

Then why is it part of the license?  Surely your acceptance of the
license is conditioned upon your acceptance of the entirety of the
license.  I see no term regarding severability.

 > > What if you buy him a beer that he doesn't like, and he refuses it?
 > 
 > Irrelevant.  Nothing is said about Mr. Kamp's taste in beer, nor is he
 > in any way obligated to drink the beer you provide.

If he refuses to accept your beer, you have not "bought him a beer".
You have merely offered to buy him a beer.  Is that the same thing?

 > > Or how about OSD#5, discriminating against people with a religious
 > > objection to strong drink?  How is a Mormon or Jehovah's
 > > Witness to comply with this license without violating their religious
 > > beliefs?
 > 
 > AFAIK those religions prohibit the ingestion of alcohol, not the
 > mere purchase of it.

Perhaps.  This verse says nothing about drinking:
    Num. 6: 3, shall separate himself from wine and strong drink.
Of course, there are other verses which do say drink.

 > > Or how about OSD#7, which says that you can't require someone to execute
 > > an additional license?  If you could lose your license strictly because
 > > you're unwilling to buy someone a beer (perhaps you're a wine drinker),
 > > that seems to violate OSD#7.
 > 
 > "Seems, madam?  Nay, is; I know not 'seems'."  --Hamlet

Certainly one could make the case that purchasing a beer is a
completely unrelated transaction to using or redistributing software.

 > > But it's a nice short license, without any legalese.
 > 
 > Amen to that.

Exactly.  The fact that I can argue against it, you argue for it, and
me argue against it again, says that the license is made worse by its
lack of specification and legalese, not better.

Y'know, I'm sure there are lawyers out there who would look at the
source of a program, and dyke out lines of code at random because they
didn't understand them or think they were necessary, or HORRORS,
thought they were programese.  Given the nature of writing code and
writing legal documents, I expect that such lawyers are far and few
between.  Unfortunately not for programmers, when you reverse the
situation.

And that probably includes me, too.  Hopefully less than most.

Somewhere, there is a playwright writing a play about a king, who is
saying "The first thing we do, let's kill all the programmers."

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