[Fwd: Re: For Approval: The Azure License]
Bruce Perens
bruce at perens.com
Wed Jul 8 14:29:28 UTC 2009
Kenneth Ballenegger wrote:
> The Azure License
>
> Copyright (c) {year} {copyright holders, including link}
>
> You (the licensee) are hereby
"Hereby" is a noise word. It means "by this document here", which is
obvious. People use it because they've seen it used. It would not block
acceptance of the license.
> You must give attribution to the copyright holder(s), by name and by
> hyperlink, in the about box, credits document and/or documentation of
> any derivative work using a substantial portion of this software.
Regarding the multiple copyright holder issue. You could include a space
in the license where the name to be attributed and the hyperlink to be
used can be filled in. But if this is something that every subsequent
modifier adds to, it becomes burdensome to the licensee. If it can't be
added to, it defeats the attribution purpose for subsequent modifiers.
> Question: is it possible to add text to the license that isn't
> considered legal? I'd like to write an introduction paragraph that
> explains the license and in particular the "meaningful" attribution
> requirement in plain english.
You can't keep a court from attempting to consider anything, including
this discussion. Preamble text is widely used, but there is a general
perception that it adds to ambiguity rather than resolving it.
Bruce
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