<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="background-color:transparent">On Tue, Sep 1, 2026 at 1:12\u202fPM Pamela Chestek <<a href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a>> wrote:</span></div></div><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
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These are all statements of how you believe that the license should
be interpreted. But a number of people have explained how a party or
a court could find ways to construe it differently. As an example,
you say in (f) that "the clearance paragraph is a risk-allocation
disclaimer." But I previously pointed out, and you acknowledged,
that it could be construed as an obligation on the part of the
licensee. You have also acknowledged that some of the content could
be double-licensed with the OpenMDW-1.1 license and the original
third-party license, which is somewhat contrary to how you say the
license operates in (d). So I would take all of these statements as
what your intention was, not how the license actually operates. And
the problem with trying to correct ambiguities with FAQs is that
there is no requirement for a court to consider statements outside
the four corners of the license itself, particularly when the author
of the statements isn't a party to the lawsuit. So you can't count
on FAQs to prevent an unintended interpretation.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><span id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-d63e8425-7fff-2b9d-4924-c120a10116fe"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">Pam,</span> three responses to your latest email, which, in my opinion, characterized our position in a way I feel compelled to correct. </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">On dual licensing: I do not see the inconsistency with (d). Passing third-party code through under a sublicense that the third party's own license permits is exactly what (d) <span class="Q6ibn ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">describes,</span> a grant conveying rights the providers hold or can pass through. What (d) <span class="Q6ibn ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">denies, and what held true in every scenario we walked through, </span>is that OpenMDW strips or replaces the third party's terms or diminishes any recipient's rights received directly <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">from the</span> third party. B's MIT offer and C's rights under it were untouched in all four scenarios we went through.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">On</span> the clearance paragraph: <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">what I acknowledged is</span> that the drafting could <span class="Q6ibn ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">have been</span> clearer (which is also true of clauses in every OSI-approved license), and I stated the reading I consider correct and why. Those positions are consistent, and they are the posture every license steward I'm aware of takes toward imperfect text. If there's a perfect text with zero ambiguity, I apparently haven't seen it yet. Furthermore, if the concern is that a \u201cyou are solely responsible for clearing rights\u201d disclaimer might be misread as an implicit license condition, <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">then I think </span>this would have significant implications for OSI-approved licenses such as the EPL family, which make comparable \u201csolely responsible\u201d terms an </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">explicit</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> license condition with no ambiguity.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">On intention versus operation: <span class="Q6ibn ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">part</span> 7 of my prior email was labeled what it is: a summary of our positions as the steward. You take those as statements of intention rather than of how the license operates. But the standard implied by your objection asks me to prove a negative: that no party could ever propose a different construction. No license drafter could ever meet that burden. You are right that a steward's statements do not bind courts, and right that a motivated party can propose an alternative construction of any license. But that has been the condition of every license OSI has ever approved. "The Work" under Apache-2.0, "the Program" under the EPL, and GPLv2, acquired stable meaning over decades through the same combination of text, structure, published steward interpretation, and community practice. If "a court might read it otherwise" were the standard, I can't see how any license would ever pass OSI's review.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><font color="#000000" face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">I am surprised by the level of scrutiny being applied <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">here, and while</span> I welcome the thoughtful analysis, I want to<span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none"> make sure</span> our position and statements are not misunderstood. </span></font></p><p style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><font color="#000000" face="Arial, sans-serif"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Mike</span></p></span><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"><div> </div></div></div>