Re: [Fsfe-uk] GPL licence untested, authors could lose their rights in UK

[Sam Liddicott]

Jason Clifford wrote:

On Tue, 11 Apr 2006, Sam Liddicott wrote:

  

WE know that the GPL means license rather than sale, but do the 
customers infer such after reading the license? I think "not sold" is a 
very important part of the statement, one that needs clearly making.

Should we limit the license such that if law implies certain extended 
terms the license is rather revoked than extended?
i.e. the software is licensed under such limited terms or not at all - 
if local law extends warranty or license beyond limits then license is 
not available in your locality.
    

I'm not sure that would hold as you'd be retroactively revoking the 
license in response to a courts ruling which might well be seen as 
contempt of the court.
  

Hmm, I understand, and it seems a little unjust as the licensor might then say "I would never have licensed under these terms" but law is full of such things.

I recently learned that if a water course borders your property, that although your deed or land registration may end at the water course, courts declare that the property developer did not intend to withhold the extra strip of land up to half-way through the watercourse, this is deemed to belong to the ajoining property owner who is the liable for upkeep and possibly damages due to lack of maintainance. Of course the property owner might say "I certainly didn't intend to buy (or know I had) that strip of land or the accompanying liability" but there we go...

However my intention was not to actively revoke the license but to grant conditional license in regions where such extensions do not exist. Rather than hold the court in contempt it merely defers to the courts the decision as to whether or not the software CAN be licensed in that region at all - which probably doesn't solve the problem.

Sam