"Lex Spoon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> * A meeting of minds: the license issuer need never receive >> communication from the licensee, so how can there be meeting of the >> minds? > > That's an interesting requirement that is apparently different in > different countries; in some places, it seems, you can post an offer, > and then people can take you up on that offer and forrm a contract with > you even though the communication was one-directional.
That's why I'm restricting this to US-contracts -- I think the translation of Civil Code obligations as "contract" is needlessly confusing in this context. So I'll try to say US-contract when I mean the technical term, and obligation when I mean vertag, and we can muddle through that way. > Aside from that, I would think it would be free if the basis of this > "meeting of minds" requirement were the communication with the guy > giving you the software. So long as I can pass on the software, and the > receivers can pass it on transitively, so what if we theoretically form > a new contract at each step of the way? DFSG 7 talks about this kind of > situation, but I don't know if that is what DFSG 7 has in mind. This > situation does *seam* to be free and open source to me. Then the license is requiring me to form a (US-style) contract in order to pass on the software, which is a non-free burden on me. For example, a requirement that I get everyone to whom I give the software to agree to some EULA is non-free: they aren't copying or distributing the software, just receiving a copy from me and executing it. >> * A consideration: if the license document specifies consideration to >> the licensor, the license can't be free. > > Certainly it's a problem if the consideration is sending $1000 to the > author. However, DFSG1 says merely that you cannot charge a royalty or > fee; it does not say that you must require nothing at all, if I am > reading it correctly. Consider two cases where a required consideration > might still leave the license agreement being free. It doesn't say monetary fee, just fee. But let's look at the examples. > First, the consideration may be something completely acceptible for a > free software license, e.g. "you will include source code with any > distribution of the program." This may be less trivial than it sounds: > the agreement may grant you full rights but then say you are obligated > not to use them all. That is not a fee. That is a permission to distribute source+binary, where previously I had no permission to distribute binaries at all. Would it be more liberating to give me permission to distribute binary alone? Sure, but this is still a free license. I'm not doing anything to provide consideration to the author. > More interestingly, the consideration might be really minor. Suppose it > says "you must email the author before distributing a modified version, > provided that sending one email is free for you." This is certainly > annoying, but it's very minor and it seems to fit DFSG. That's at the very least a lawyerbomb -- what does "free" mean, and if I have no-money-required e-mail but I live in North Korea and will be tortured for using free software, is that free? But either sending e-mail is free, so I must send it, which means this is consideration, so it has value, so it isn't free, so I don't have to... ...or sending e-mail is free, so this isn't consideration, so it isn't a US-contract ...or sending e-mail isn't free, so there's no consideration, so this isn't a US-contract. In any case, this fails the desert island test and chinese dissident test. -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
