For Approval: BSD License, PostgreSQL Variant

[Chuck Swiger]

On Oct 11, 2007, at 6:07 PM, dlw wrote:
> The GPL purports to bind "all third parties" to the terms of the  
> GPL license. Unfortunately the Supreme Court of the United States  
> in 2002 reaffirmed a fundamental principle of contract law  
> prohibiting the parties to a contract from binding nonparties. See  
> EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc./, 534 U.S. 279, 294 (2002) (“It goes  
> without saying that a contract cannot bind a nonparty.”).

DLW, you show a remarkable facility for misinterpreting simple  
situations and then finding citations which refute the strawman  
position you've invented.  To address this confusion simply, the GPL  
does not purport to bind all third parties.  In the initial clause,  
it says "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification  
are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.  The act  
of running the Program is not restricted...."

The GPL applies to people who copy, (re)distribute, and/or modify  
(aka creative derivative works) something which is licensed under the  
GPL.  Someone who does none of these things is not bound by the GPL.

-- 
-Chuck