rms at 1407.org claiming "licenses aren't contracts" and that...

[Donovan Hawkins]

Alexander Terekhov wrote:
>
> Why not
discuss here on *license discuss* forum (not license approval 
>
or some such) http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Horn/99/RTCOMP.htm

> ruling by the United States Court of Federal Claims...

Because that is not the stated purpose of this list, as has been pointed
out many times. Try looking at more than the name of the list...titles are
generally non-normative.

If you're so sure about your vast
understanding of the law and the GPL (your favorite target), why don't you
do something more than whine about it? Take a piece of Torvalds' GPL'd
linux kernel code (one that he personally wrote), use a few obvious
snippets of it in an original program, and then email the link you've
posted it at to Torvalds and the FSF. Legal note: I do not recommend doing
this and will not be held responsible if you do.

Until then,
stop using random half-assed license agreements as strawmen, because they
have no relevance.


> 2. (pseudo) legal theory of
"automatically and ipso facto" termination 
> on a
slightest breach without ability to cure and without any formal 
>
withdrawal of previously-given permission by the injured party in 
> light of these holdings: 

The Use Agreement in the
linked case contains only the following:

"This document is
to confirm that RT Graphics, Inc. has given permission to the United
States Postal Service to use its American Indian border designs in any
philatelic products related to the American Indian Dance stamp series.
There are no fees associated with the granting of this permission. RT
Graphics, Inc. requires a credit in said materials."

There
was no automatic termination clause, so of course a violation that is
considered minor would not terminate the agreement. The Plaintiff didn't
even manually terminate the agreement, and the Defendent had already begun
to correct the problem in future releases.

What does this have
to do with real licenses like GPL that containt automatic termination
clauses? It is possible to specify in an agreement that something
normally considered minor is to be treated as serious...I know you of all
people won't object to my using contract law for an example, so I
would point to the classic "time is of the essence" phrase as
one such case.

If your claim is that it is possible to write
crappy license agreements, I think we can all concede the point.

Donovan Hawkins

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