It's the Internet so who needs skills or experience to comment! But, I did run a commercial team (lawyers and negotiators) for a software company that handled

It's the Internet so who needs skills or experience to comment! But, I did run a commercial team (lawyers and negotiators) for a software company that handled hundreds of incoming and outgoing licenses: including ones to major software vendors like Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. I am not a lawyer though ... but, sometimes I play one on the Web. I'm not trying to tell you the terms are "reasonable", that's a matter of opinion. I'm telling you that the way in which they are interpreted in the blog post is not in line with how they would commonly be read. It is not a fair reading of the terms as far as I can see - consequently saying they have a "bad choice" of license makes no sense since the clauses are being cherry-picked. Second, people often think licenses have to be 'reasonable', they don't. They have to be enforceable and in your businesses interests - Cognitect clearly thought those terms were in their interests. I'm not going to comment on the clauses further, you've clearly read them one way and I was offering the observation that I would not have come at them from that perspective. I guess the best way to have found out their intent would have been to call them up and ask them, getting clarity added when you negotiated the deal terms where it was required. Most commonly, people have terms in their licenses because of specific issues they are concerned about and when you understand that something can be done to "fix" the difference of perspectives. Finally, the new license looks eminently reasonable, so perhaps they noted the concerns and have now fixed them, no?