[OSM-legal-talk] Privacy and Terms

Francis Davey fjmd1a at gmail.com
Fri Jul 3 08:43:33 BST 2009


2009/7/3 Russ Nelson <russ at cloudmade.com>:
>
> Indeed.  Consider what you would say if a lawyer looked at a program
> and said "Why do we need all this codese?"

Speaking as a lawyer - albeit one who hasn't been on this list nearly
long enough to have an opinion, I'm mostly just trying to learn where
OSM are coming from - my reaction to the terms of use is "yuk". I'm
not sure this it the place to discuss it and whether my views are at
all interesting, but I do draft (and more often litigate) contracts
like this.

Main problem (as I see it) is that its drafted from a US point of
view, but purports to be governed by English law. I'm not quite sure
how that will work out in practice or what the goal is. Is it clear
that OSM is only used in the US and England? If not, why is (only) US
law being mentioned when many different legal systems will come into
play? If English law is the governing law, then that, surely is the
one to go with, subject to having an eye to all other relevant
jurisdictions.

I work a lot with clients who want to be reasonably legal safe but
want contracts to be short and simple and are prepared to take the
risk that I haven't put in an extra 30 pages of boilerplate to cover
an obscure risk, so that kind of drafting is entirely possible. But
its a matter entirely for the client. I'd be happy to write/rewrite
this kind of thing for you or give my input, but, as I said, I'm an
OSM novice and really don't know what you are after.

>From an English law point of view, all caps paragraphs should be
removed of course 8-).

There's a bunch of stuff I'd rewrite, but its not up to me.

All the best.

-- 
Francis Davey




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