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I'm not a lawyer, but I happen to know the answer to this under common law. Which is what applies to most of the USA (Louisiana being the exception), but doesn

by btilly 5y ago

I'm not a lawyer, but I happen to know the answer to this under common law. Which is what applies to most of the USA (Louisiana being the exception), but doesn't apply to Italy. I have no idea about Italian law. A common law contract requires an offer, acceptance, and consideration. That is, one side must offer the contract. The other must accept it. And each must have some potential gain from it (consideration). Both sides are then bound by the agreement. The agreement can be quite complicated, for example it may bind the parties to resolving disputes with binding arbitration. A license is permission to do something under some conditions. If you break the license, you are without permission. The licensor can then pursue claims against you just as they could if no license ever existed. For example if you break a copyright license, the licensor can sue you for copyright infringement. But without an explicit agreement from you, they can't sue for anything else.

GoblinSlayer 5y ago
That's just how proprietary licenses prefer to work. Licenses can do anything contracts can do. Copyleft licenses can grant rights to your users, and if the court believes the rights were granted, it can enforce them.
- btilly 5y ago
  Not according to lawyers that I've had long conversations about this with. This is just how the law works. If you want to find a discussion of this topic by a lawyer, a good chunk of https://rosenlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/Taxonomy-of-Licenses.pdf https://rosenlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/Taxonomy-of-Licenses... is on exactly this topic. The author of which specializes in open source licensing, and was the general counsel for the Open Software Institute.
  - GoblinSlayer 5y ago
    You mean bare licenses? The author mentions many times there are other possibilities.
    - bdowling 5y ago
      The article that btilly linked to is very good, but I think it over-emphasizes the possibility of interpreting open source licenses as contracts. You have to read pretty far and pay close attention to understand that most open source licenses will fail as contracts and that the GPL explicitly intends that result (pp. 65-66). Some consequences: (1) the sole recourse for breach of license conditions will be to sue for copyright infringement, (2) only the copyright owner will have standing to sue, (i.e., an intermediate licensee or a user, who might have standing as a third-party beneficiary under a contract theory, will not), and (3) remedies will be limited to monetary damages.

by btilly 5y ago

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

That's just how proprietary licenses prefer to work. Licenses can do anything contracts can do. Copyleft licenses can grant rights to your users, and if the court believes the rights were granted, it can enforce them.

btilly 5y ago
Not according to lawyers that I've had long conversations about this with. This is just how the law works. If you want to find a discussion of this topic by a lawyer, a good chunk of https://rosenlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/Taxonomy-of-Licenses.pdf https://rosenlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/Taxonomy-of-Licenses... is on exactly this topic. The author of which specializes in open source licensing, and was the general counsel for the Open Software Institute.
- GoblinSlayer 5y ago
  You mean bare licenses? The author mentions many times there are other possibilities.
  - bdowling 5y ago
    The article that btilly linked to is very good, but I think it over-emphasizes the possibility of interpreting open source licenses as contracts. You have to read pretty far and pay close attention to understand that most open source licenses will fail as contracts and that the GPL explicitly intends that result (pp. 65-66). Some consequences: (1) the sole recourse for breach of license conditions will be to sue for copyright infringement, (2) only the copyright owner will have standing to sue, (i.e., an intermediate licensee or a user, who might have standing as a third-party beneficiary under a contract theory, will not), and (3) remedies will be limited to monetary damages.