License Committee Report for September 2009

[Giancarlo Niccolai]

Bruce Perens wrote:
> Giancarlo Niccolai wrote:
>> Maybe, it's not a perfect work, but liquidating this license as 
>> "legal trash" is very probably inaccurate.
> So sorry, the particular line in question, standing alone, didn't seem 
> to meet the quality which I would have liked to see. 
What particular line? -- if you refer to what was written in the 
previous mail, that's just a line from a commentary, a set of examples I 
wrote on the site; it doesn't come from the license.

> But you are correct that I should re-read the entire license. By the 
> way, are you a professional legal translator? If so that would be good 
> to know.
>
No, I am not; I clearly stated it in the submission, and that's why I am 
publishing also the original in Italian for reference. However, please 
notice that:

1) the license itself (where it differs from Apache 2.0) HAS been 
written by attorneys skilled in international regulations (actually, two 
of them; one of them was also the translator). Of course, we worked 
together at the writing. I that the unchanged parts from Apache2.0 are 
written by professionals too, and that has been generally confirmed to 
me by the attorneys that worked at the modifies I asked to introduce.

2) I felt confident in translating the legal commentary as it doesn't 
contain Legalese. It's a comment in plain Italian about the literal 
modifications to Apache 2.0 and the impact of the modifications with 
respect to OSI criteria.

So, I must admit that it is not an in-depth analysis of its breadth and 
robustness in a court;  however, the fact that the license was written 
together with two attorneys skilled specifically in international 
business regulations and checked by a third one, (the same ones that 
wrote the comparative relation), which are, BTW, regular customers of 
mine in my professional activity, would suggest that it was made to be 
not a waste of time and money, and for sure, not to be "legal trash".

Even if I have not a certified legal analysis about the robustness of 
FPLL, it was built together with qualified attorneys to be a valid 
instrument.

If the need arises here in this discussion, I could produce that kind of 
analysis too (but then I wouldn't feel confident in translating it 
myself, and I'd ask them to translate that too. It's an extra service, 
so I'd have to pay for that separately, but it may be worth).

Bests,
Giancarlo Niccolai.