[License-discuss] License compatibility - reg

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ben Tilly (btilly at gmail.com):

> According to my recollection, she was definitely of the opinion that
> her statements about whether the license should be enforceable at all
> helped sway the judge to the position that it should be.

I'm pretty sure you have changed the subject.

If your assertion is merely that judges may consult various parties
including licence drafters about various things in a case about
copyright owner X's software licensing -- leaving aside the awkward
point (for you) that Ms. Randal was not a licence drafter in this or to
my knowledge any other case -- then, OK, sure.  Almost tautologically
true, actually.

Problem:  This was simply not, to the best of my recollection, what was
being talked about upthread.

Rather, it was some vaguely described situation where one Mr.
Satyanarayana was said to be 'combining in some way' codebases under
various licences one of which was GPLv3 from FSF, to which Matthew and
then you, if I understood correctly, asserted that someone wishing to
determine what obligaions matter (including, say, judges) should "listen
to' FSF.

To which I said, when copyright violation gets litigated, judges consult
competent and relevant evidence about what licensors' terms were,
starting with the written licence text and (if necessary to resolve
ambiguity) other competent and relevant indicators about what licensors
intended, such as their other writings, statements, and actions.

FSF is not in the general case useful in that regard.  Hence my point.

How you got from there to the Jacobsen case and Alison Randal, notable
Perl persona but not licensor, I am not sure I know but pretty sure I
don't really need to know.

The rest of this seems to be a complete waste of time.  If you disagree,
feel welcome to carry on without me.