[License-review] For Approval: Convertible Free Software License, Version 1.1 (C-FSL v1.1)

[Elmar Stellnberger]

On 9/28/18 1:45 AM, Bruce Perens wrote:
> 
>         Nobody is forced to contribute. If a contributor has read the
>     license
>     he can then decide thereupon whether he wants to contribute or not.
> 
> 
> It is an unfortunate fact that most of the developers do not have access 
> to legal counsel, and are poorly equipped to parse the license on their 
> own. So "caveat emptor" isn't a really good argument here. OSI should 
> not approve a license with language that works as a trap for the unwary 
> developer.
> 

The opposite is true. The license has intendedly been written in a way 
so that programmers not only lawyers can understand it. To me it is a 
crucial fact because the programmers are those who will need to know how 
the license works in order to do their programming work.

 > Another license, the original Artistic License written by a non-attorney
 > got to court and the lower court parsed it in a completely unintended
 > fashion, costing an Open Source developer some money and years of pain,
 > and requiring various lawyers and I to spend a lot of time helping the
 > appeals court get it straight. So, OSI should not accept licenses
 > written by non-attorneys any longer.

It may be the way that US juristication is somewhat odd with regards to 
common sense. I believe we have a better legal system here in Europe and 
especially in Austria. If any of the original authors comes from Europe 
it is an option to apply European law.