Re: the GPL is a license not a contract ..

[Alan Mackenzie]

In gnu.misc.discuss Rjack <user@example.net> wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>> In gnu.misc.discuss Rjack <user@example.net> wrote:
>>> Doug Mentohl wrote:
>>>> Rjack wrote:
 
>>> For the past seventy years no federal court has ever ruled a 
>>> copyright license to be anything other than a contract.
 
>> Who cares?  One's got 7 letters, the other 8.  It's the effect it
>>  has which is important, not the name you give it.
 
> It matters greatly. Since license are contracts, interpretation
> under state common law applies as well as federal copyright law.
> Things like privity and 17 USC 301(a) apply. Without a choice of law
> provision a copyright license may be interpreted fifty different
> ways depending on which state jurisdiction is invoked.

All sounds rather parochial to me.  There are a great deal more than
merely fifty different systems of law under which the GPL operates.

> Sincerely,
> Rjack :)

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).