Re: [Gnu-arch-users] contributors' licensing conditions

[James Blackwell]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2006 at 09:28:02PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> >>>>> "James" == James Blackwell <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>     James> The intended meaning
> 
> I understand the intent.  Have you ever introduced a bug into a
> program?  Did the program do what you intended it to?  Law works the
> same way.  Cf. Sun vs. Microsoft in re Java.

I've lost context here, so I'll guess at that. If the indented context is
different then please indicate thusly and I'll try and answer that as
well.

Yes, software can have bugs, and licenses can have bugs too. This draft
has at least three significant bugs and two dozen minor ones. Thats ok
though, because this is not a license -- its a first draft.

  
>     James> This has nothing to do with system management or
>     James> authentication! Promise!
> 
> You can't.  Nobody can make such a promise, not even the Chief Justice
> of the Supreme Court of the United States.  In the U.S., the courts
> will decide what the language means.  They will, as always, give
> primary weight to the author(s) of the contract, but they will also
> give some weight to the opinions of other users, especially in cases
> unforeseen by the authors.

I'll certainly agree that if you can misread the license draft, that
others could misread it as well. There was plenty of legal counsel that
repeated their opinions that the license does indeed read the way that
Eben Moglin summarized.  There is clear and solid legal precedent that
makes a clear legal distinction that normal human beings such as you and I
aren't normally aware of.

That said, I've heard you say that it doesn't read this way to you. I'll
make a point of discussing this issue on the board that I'm on. You can
help by visiting the site that I've mentioned to clearly mark and indicate
your chain of logic that brings you to that conclusion.

>     James> You can help fixi t up by hitting the comments page and
>     James> selecting the parts that you think have problems and
>     James> clearly explaining what the problems are.
> 
> Maybe in 6-8 months.  Since it doesn't matter to Arch, I'm not going
> to worry about it again until it we're getting close to D-Day for XEmacs.

Uh-huh. Well, see you in June-August.

-- 
James Blackwell's home :  http://jblack.linuxguru.net
Gnupg 06357400   F-print AAE4 8C76 58DA 5902 761D  247A 8A55 DA73 0635 7400

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