On Fri, Jul 23, 2004 at 12:25:16PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote: > Sven Luther writes: > > >> The usual explanation is that it discriminates against people outside > > > > Well, any licence allowing the user to be sued discriminate against people > > not > > having the time or money to play legal games. > > That is why most licenses don't bother to mention lawsuits at all:
Ok, and has it occured to you that this point of law clause could also be used for people suing the upstream author over the licence ? > they are an implicit consequence of violating the license. Likewise, > Debian considers licenses non-free if they say "You may only use this > software in legal ways" because that discriminates against dissidents > where there are repressive laws. Bah, do the dissident really care ? They are dissidents anyway. > >> the chosen venue. Your response in the past was that the DFSG should > >> not protect copyright infringement, and it should not. The legal > > > > Yes. > > > >> fact, though, is that until a court rules on the matter, claims of > >> copyright infringement are just claims. Whether the copyright owner > >> files suit out of malice or misunderstanding, an innocent defendant > >> may still have to appear in some very inconvenient court that would > >> not otherwise have jurisdiction. > > > > Ok, but i am not convinced by the DFSG #5 invocation here. After all the > > same > > could happen for any wild accusation, even if there is no licence involved. > > I > > could for example claim that you are using code copyrighted by me in your > > proprietary software product, even though you never touched a code licenced > > by > > me, or do like SCO and refute the legality of the GPL. > > Unless I live or do business where you or SCO are (or some court wants > to look silly in front of the world) you and SCO would have to file > suit where I am. You could not sue me in France, and SCO could not > sue me in Utah. The license is non-free when it compels me to appear > before a court that would not otherwise have jurisdiction over me. Ok, this seems indeed similar to what i was told. Now, what would be the legality of that claim in the licence ? And as said above, what about folk wanting to sue the ocaml authors based on the licence ? Friendly, Sven Luther
