4 ms·

You shouldn't touch these licenses unless you're a professional. I'm no lawyer either, but I believe that clauses such as "use of this software constitutes agr

You shouldn't touch these licenses unless you're a professional. I'm no lawyer either, but I believe that clauses such as "use of this software constitutes agreement to" change its nature from a license grant to a contract. I have no idea what the practical difference could be, but I don't want to find out, either. Additionally, making changes in licenses makes it harder to reuse code. The license may be incompatible or it may just run afoul of procedures in larger organizations who sometimes have whitelists of approved licenses.

kazinator 10y ago
The point of the liability disclaimer is that if someone, say, uses the software and happens to lose data due to a bug, the authors (original ones or downstream modifiers or whoever) are not held liable. That requires agreement; it has to be spelled out: if you do not agree with this disclaimer of liability, then you are not licensed to use the software. If you use it anyway, it is an unlicensed use. This is exactly how it works in shrink-wrap EULA's in proprietary software; by opening the shrink wrap, or clicking on some button or whatever the heck, you agree to those things. (If that's a contract, then let it be a contract.) I'm confident that I nailed it to the way it should be, and that "constitutes agreement" is excellent wording. The difference is that I'm covered, liability wise, better than someone just using the original BSD license, which has a possible interpretation that it allows the use of the software without the user agreeing to the disclaimers, since the license doesn't appear to require acceptance of the disclaimer. From the developer's POV, that's the only part of a BSD-like license that actually matters. You've already given away the code, and allowed it to be used in proprietary code, so you're not going to be harmed by anyone stealing anything from you. At best, your code could be plagiarized: copied in source code form without you being credited, which isn't very significant. The one way you can be harmed, as in financially, is that someone wants to sue you because of some alleged bug in your code having caused some alleged loss. By the way, here is how we can be certain that in the BSD license, the disclaimer is not one of the conditions which require agreement. It's because the second condition says: ".. must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer ...". I.e. the following disclaimer is clearly distinct from the conditions, and not one of them. Since it is not one of the conditions, it is not a condition! The license might effectively not be conditional on the disclaimer. In contrast, in the GPL v2, the two disclaimers are one of the numbered conditions (11 and 12). There is nevertheless a slight flaw in the GPL v2 I just noticed. It introduces the conditions like this: "The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow." But unless "copying" is construed as use, conditions clauses 11 and 12 are not related to copying, distribution and modification. These disclaimers apply purely to use. A bug in the program isn't going cause harm while you're copying, modifying or redistributing it. In the past I've seen misinformation disseminated about the GPL like "you don't have to agree with it to use the software", which is complete nonsense; you agree with the disclaimers when you use the software.
- nzp 10y ago
  This reminds me of an anecdote about Godel, not sure if it's true or not, but here goes. When he was taking the Constitution exam to get the US citizenship, he proceeded to explain to the judge how he has a formal proof that the US Constitution is inconsistent and allows for a dictatorship to take over completely legally. Einstein was accompanying him and he somehow managed to quickly shut him up and continue to go through the motions of the exam. It also, for some reason, reminds me of what Peter Thiel once said about physics PhDs: “Because they know fundamental things, they think they know everything.”
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - oska 10y ago
    > This reminds me of an anecdote about Goedel, not sure if it's true or not, but here goes. It's true, according to a recounting [1] by Oskar Morgenstern, one of two friends who were present at Gödel's citizenship examination to vouch for his good character (the other was Albert Einstein). [1] https://robert.accettura.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Morgenstern_onGoedelcitizenship.pdf https://robert.accettura.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Morg...
  - apricot 10y ago
    Gödel predicted Trump. Film at 11.
    - nzp 10y ago
      I wish I could share your optimism about political candidates.
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    A single clause for emergencies in the Weimar constitution is what allowed Hitler (via Hindenberg) to assume dictatorial power, so Godel's concern wasn't abstract or abstruse, instead it reflected his recent European experience.
- 10y ago
kazinator 10y ago
> I believe that clauses such as "use of this software constitutes agreement to" change its nature from a license grant to a contract. I have thought about this potential issue, and concluded that it is quite obvious that the text effectively says "Use of this software constitutes agreement with the fact that it is not a contract, as spelled out in the disclaimer, which clearly asserts the non-existence of anything resembling contractual obligations." (Agreement with the fact that it's not a contract is not itself a contractual obligation.) [EDIT] Ah, okay, wait. Here is another way of looking at it. We have a certain piece of text (the disclaimer) which we hope is somehow in legal force. Either it is in force when someone in a given jurisdiction uses the software, or else it isn't. Or maybe some of it is in force. Whatever. Whether or not it is in force or to what extent doesn't depend on whether the user agrees with it; it depends rather on the laws of that land. Therefore, use doesn't have to be conditional on it; the license doesn't have to assert "if you don't agree with the disclaimer the license grant is off the table". If the user doesn't agree with the disclaimers and goes ahead and uses, we would like the license grant to still be on the table (which is, in fact, neither here nor there, this being free software) but we would like the disclaimers to be in force anyway. In that case, I might as well just go back to the original BSD license then.

kazinator 10y ago

The point of the liability disclaimer is that if someone, say, uses the software and happens to lose data due to a bug, the authors (original ones or downstream modifiers or whoever) are not held liable. That requires agreement; it has to be spelled out: if you do not agree with this disclaimer of liability, then you are not licensed to use the software. If you use it anyway, it is an unlicensed use. This is exactly how it works in shrink-wrap EULA's in proprietary software; by opening the shrink wrap, or clicking on some button or whatever the heck, you agree to those things. (If that's a contract, then let it be a contract.) I'm confident that I nailed it to the way it should be, and that "constitutes agreement" is excellent wording. The difference is that I'm covered, liability wise, better than someone just using the original BSD license, which has a possible interpretation that it allows the use of the software without the user agreeing to the disclaimers, since the license doesn't appear to require acceptance of the disclaimer. From the developer's POV, that's the only part of a BSD-like license that actually matters. You've already given away the code, and allowed it to be used in proprietary code, so you're not going to be harmed by anyone stealing anything from you. At best, your code could be plagiarized: copied in source code form without you being credited, which isn't very significant. The one way you can be harmed, as in financially, is that someone wants to sue you because of some alleged bug in your code having caused some alleged loss. By the way, here is how we can be certain that in the BSD license, the disclaimer is not one of the conditions which require agreement. It's because the second condition says: ".. must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer ...". I.e. the following disclaimer is clearly distinct from the conditions, and not one of them. Since it is not one of the conditions, it is not a condition! The license might effectively not be conditional on the disclaimer. In contrast, in the GPL v2, the two disclaimers are one of the numbered conditions (11 and 12). There is nevertheless a slight flaw in the GPL v2 I just noticed. It introduces the conditions like this: "The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow." But unless "copying" is construed as use, conditions clauses 11 and 12 are not related to copying, distribution and modification. These disclaimers apply purely to use. A bug in the program isn't going cause harm while you're copying, modifying or redistributing it. In the past I've seen misinformation disseminated about the GPL like "you don't have to agree with it to use the software", which is complete nonsense; you agree with the disclaimers when you use the software.

nzp 10y ago
This reminds me of an anecdote about Godel, not sure if it's true or not, but here goes. When he was taking the Constitution exam to get the US citizenship, he proceeded to explain to the judge how he has a formal proof that the US Constitution is inconsistent and allows for a dictatorship to take over completely legally. Einstein was accompanying him and he somehow managed to quickly shut him up and continue to go through the motions of the exam. It also, for some reason, reminds me of what Peter Thiel once said about physics PhDs: “Because they know fundamental things, they think they know everything.”
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- oska 10y ago
  > This reminds me of an anecdote about Goedel, not sure if it's true or not, but here goes. It's true, according to a recounting [1] by Oskar Morgenstern, one of two friends who were present at Gödel's citizenship examination to vouch for his good character (the other was Albert Einstein). [1] https://robert.accettura.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Morgenstern_onGoedelcitizenship.pdf https://robert.accettura.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Morg...
- apricot 10y ago
  Gödel predicted Trump. Film at 11.
  - nzp 10y ago
    I wish I could share your optimism about political candidates.
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  A single clause for emergencies in the Weimar constitution is what allowed Hitler (via Hindenberg) to assume dictatorial power, so Godel's concern wasn't abstract or abstruse, instead it reflected his recent European experience.
10y ago

kazinator 10y ago

> I believe that clauses such as "use of this software constitutes agreement to" change its nature from a license grant to a contract. I have thought about this potential issue, and concluded that it is quite obvious that the text effectively says "Use of this software constitutes agreement with the fact that it is not a contract, as spelled out in the disclaimer, which clearly asserts the non-existence of anything resembling contractual obligations." (Agreement with the fact that it's not a contract is not itself a contractual obligation.) [EDIT] Ah, okay, wait. Here is another way of looking at it. We have a certain piece of text (the disclaimer) which we hope is somehow in legal force. Either it is in force when someone in a given jurisdiction uses the software, or else it isn't. Or maybe some of it is in force. Whatever. Whether or not it is in force or to what extent doesn't depend on whether the user agrees with it; it depends rather on the laws of that land. Therefore, use doesn't have to be conditional on it; the license doesn't have to assert "if you don't agree with the disclaimer the license grant is off the table". If the user doesn't agree with the disclaimers and goes ahead and uses, we would like the license grant to still be on the table (which is, in fact, neither here nor there, this being free software) but we would like the disclaimers to be in force anyway. In that case, I might as well just go back to the original BSD license then.