Sorry, for answering so late, but amount of debian-legal messages is so huge, that I have not find enough time to read it until now.
On 20 Dec 99, at 14:48, Raul Miller wrote: > On Sun, Dec 19, 1999 at 11:16:56PM +0100, Marketa Ceplova wrote: > > 1) Consideration is defined by my old Emanuel Outlines for Contracts as > > "detriment to promisee bargained for", which certainly is nothing which > > author of free software receives. > > Why? [I'm interested in seeing if you can come up with an explanation > which corresponds to the definition which does not also exclude normally > accepted contracts.] The idea is probably (very roughly) that only non-gratuitous (e.g. mostly business) promises are to be enforced by the law (promise of present is typically non-enforceable under the US law, isn't?). Therefore only the promises which are parallel detriment to promisee are honored. I am not sure, whether there is any detriment to author of free work. > You're not required to accept a contract, but if you want to receive > the benefits of one you must abide by it. There is a lot of legal systems (and I am not exactly sure with the one of your state), that requires for example knowledge of offer being accepted in order to protect contract (i.e., the Czech one -- see http://www.volny.cz/cepls/ ). Have a nice day Matthew
