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Right. Among other potential issues, such a license is effectively revocable based on someone declaring some particular action or entity "evil" (which is heavil
by JoshTriplett 6y ago
Right. Among other potential issues, such a license is effectively revocable based on someone declaring some particular action or entity "evil" (which is heavily subjective). A license that included the term "this license may be revoked by the author at any time" would also not be FOSS.
- bitwize 6y agoOpen source licenses are revocable anyway under U.S. law because they are bare licenses, not contracts.
- nrr 6y agoI'm not sure how to search for this to verify your claim, but I'm intrigued. Do you happen to have a citation to a ruling that you can share?
- bitwize 6y agoThis has not been tested in court so far as I know. (Please do not cite Artifex v. Hancom. Special conditions prevailed in that case that do not apply, in general, to all software under a nonexclusive open source license.) Generally speaking, under common law, in order for an agreement to have the force of a contract, there must be an offer, acceptance, and consideration. Since most people acquire open source through a download, there is no consideration (monetary value) being remitted to the author of the software, and hence the license does not have the force of a contract binding on the author. The license is thus a bare license, and the author has the right to revoke it at any time. Unfortunately that's how contract law works in common-law jurisdictions, and we are in for some nasty surprises once this actually does get tested in court. Civil-law jurisdictions, for example Germany, do not necessarily require consideration in order for a contract to be binding. Open source licenses such as the GPL can be binding contracts in Germany.