Question regarding a new local license approach

[Walter van Holst]

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:21:43 -0500, Chuck Swiger <chuck at codefab.com> wrote:

> You might want to review the German Free Software License (archived Nov
> 2004?) for a license based more on the premises of European contract
> law and no disclaimer of warrantee permitted by local law.

Just to clarify things a bit. There is no such thing as "European
contract law" except as a figment of Eurocrat imagination. There is
however such a thing as a European continental law tradition regarding
contracts with quite a difference between the German and the French
traditions (The Netherlands has a much more German approach whereas
neighboring Belgium is much more French in that respect). The
differences are big enough that I will not dare to approve a contract
under Belgian law without consulting a Belgian lawyer first and for
most Belgian lawyers it is the opposite way around. On top of that
there are various EU directives on contract law that protect consumers
and that have been implemented in national statutes. The bottom line
is that the German license you mention is mostly useless to me,
especially since the German copyright doctrines are slightly but
significantly different from ours, as well as the French
implementation of the GPL which is hampered by the same problem.

Regards,

 Walter