Rjack wrote:
Professor Micheal Davis of Clevland State University Law School:
A unilateral grant of permission is a contract; we even have a
> legal term for such a situation and it is, unsurprisingly, called
> a unilateral contract.
Wikipedia says
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateral_contract#Bilateral_v._unilateral_contracts>
In a unilateral contract, only one party to the contract
makes a promise.
...
An offer of a unilateral contract may often be made to many
people (or 'to the world') by means of an advertisement. In
that situation, acceptance will only occur on satisfaction
of the condition.
...
In unilateral contracts, the requirement that acceptance be
communicated to the offeror is waived. The offeree accepts by
performing the condition, and the offeree's performance is
also treated as the price, or consideration, for the offeror's
promise.
Which all sounds just like the GPL. We call the GPL a license to
emphasize its unilateral nature.