On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 04:51:40AM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote: > On Sun, Jun 03, 2007 at 12:25:14PM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > > Additionally, personally I don't think it's unreasonable for people to > > say "if you use my software in a way that I didn't want you to, I'll sue > > you in a court that works by a set of rules that I'm actually > > comfortable with". You know, it makes fighting those who do not follow > > your license the way you intended them to quite a bit easier. > That's a strawman. The objection raised to choice-of-venue clauses is not > what they specify to happen when the licensee has *infringed* the license, > it's what they specify to happen when the licensee *hasn't* infringed the > license but the copyright holder files a lawsuit against them anyway out of > malice.
I don't think that's meaningful; if I sue you in a court in Australia for not complying with debootstrap's license, and they find that you've infringed the license, it doesn't really matter if I'm doing that out of maliciousness or a genuine. And as far as the actual effects go, I'm not sure you're going to be any better off without that clause in your license: if you set foot in Australia, with an Australian judgement against you, there's a good chance of it being enforced; and if you don't, there seems to be a practical possibility of your extradition anyway, based on [0]. Simon Phipps' argument, presented at debconf last year, is (aiui) that the clause only comes into play when both parties are organisations that cross multiple jurisdictions anyway -- in which case they're both presumed to have a presence in the given jurisdiction anyway, and could reasonably be expected to be following its rules, afaics. [0] http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/05/06/1178390140855.html Cheers, aj
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