[License-review] veto against Unlicence

[jonathon]

On 5/15/20 5:42 AM, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Thorsten Glaser:
> 
>>> (b) violation is a statutory crime even without prosecution.
>>
>> § 106 UrhG (use of a protected work without permission), which in
>> itself is indeed only prosecuted on request, EXCEPT if § 108a also
>> applies (doing so commercially). See
>> http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/BJNR012730965.html#BJNR012730965BJNE014804377
>> and the following paragraphs (§ 108a is excepted from § 109).
> 
> That's a problem with the German criminal code and needs to be fixed
> there.  It should not determine which licensed get approved by OSI.

When using the an OSI approved license, the last thing I'd expect, is to
discover that I had committed a felony. That said, things that look like
they might be public domain, can be, legally speaking, tricky.

I'm going to use SQLite & Hwaci as an example, simply because I have had
prolonged discussions about it, with various parties.
In Japan and The European Union, sans Britain, and its possessions and
territories, buy _The Warranty of Title for SQLite_.
In Great Britain, and the former/current British Commonwealth, their
public domain declaration is good enough, for most purposes, for most
organisations.
In the United States, if you do not use Microsoft products, their public
domain declaration is good enough. If you do use Microsoft products,
buying a _The Warranty of Title for SQLite_ is mandatory.
in Africa and South America, the public declaration is good enough, if
you are willing to pay a bribe. (Typically, bribes cost less than the
Warranty of Title. When a bribe won't make it go away, a Warranty of
Title probably won't make it go away.)
In Asia, the only suggestion is to not come to the attention of anybody
with political authority.

The reason for getting _The Warranty of Title_ if one uses Microsoft
products, is that Microsoft is far more aggressive about license
enforcement than Apple is. Furthermore, Microsoft license enforcement
looks at all of the software, whereas Apple license enforcement
typically ignores non-Apple software.




This is not legal advice.
I am not a lawyer.
Do consult with a lawyer, before following anything stated in this email.

jonathon