[OSM-legal-talk] Request for clarification (for German translation) of CTs 1.2.4

[Simon Poole]

Francis, have a nice holiday.

Simon

PS: I'm actually completly with you on the interpretation, the issue is 
that we have a large body of mappers that are German CS students, that 
just love arguing subtle points, and in formal specifications must, 
shall, should, etc. have very different meanings.

Am 24.03.2011 14:27, schrieb Francis Davey:
> On 24 March 2011 13:13, Simon Poole<simon at poole.ch>  wrote:
>> I was referring to the 1.2.4 French translation
>>
>> http://www.osmfoundation.org/images/c/c2/2011-03-08_OSM_Contributor_Terms_1.2.4_FrenchTranslation.pdf
>>
>> What you have is the translation of 1.0.
>>
>> The issue wrt to the wording is if to use a strong "must not infringe" vs. a
>> weak "should not infringe" (in the German translation).
>>
> But contractual obligations aren't "strong" or "weak". Can you explain
> what you think that difference means in terms of the obligations
> either would impose on a contributor? It may be that German law knows
> of a difference between strong and weak obligations. English law
> doesn't (yes there's a distinction between terms which do or do not
> entitle the other party to repudiate, but we aren't worrying about
> that here).
>
> In other words, the proper question is: what obligation does the
> English contractor terms place on a contributor, and then translate
> that obligation into German. I'm not sure how close the existing
> wording is to one of the various ones I suggested, but the intention
> is that the first part of 1(a) indicates OSMF's goal, and only the
> second part imposes an obligation, but as I explained earlier I am not
> sure that is what it does.
>
> Can I suggest that it would be a really really good idea to have the
> contributor terms drafted in one go by a professional lawyer, rather
> than bit by bit. I've had various requests to look at specific parts
> of the wording, but really the contract has to hang together as a
> whole. What needs to happen is that (whoever it is who makes these
> decisions) decides what they want the terms to do and then have them
> drafted to do that. Drafting good legal copy is not something that
> should be done like a wiki document.
>
> I realise everyone works very hard over this, but none of the versions
> I've seen make me happy in numerous ways. I speak as someone who has
> entirely no view as to what they should do, but since I draft exactly
> this kind of contract all the time (and sadly litigate others, though
> not ones I have drafted), I have quite strong sensibilities about how
> they should read.
>
> My "spare time" is pretty limited and my pro bono effort is directed
> at various other organisations (My Society, ORG and the One Click
> Organisation) but just to get this settled I'd be happy to take formal
> instruction from OSMF to sort this out properly without charge.
>
> But I don't want to be a self-publicist. It may be that everyone is
> happy with the CT's and feels no help is needed. There are almost
> certainly other (large) law firms that would be happy to offer a free
> consult so they could associate their name with OSMF's (which is now
> getting pretty famous).
>
> Anyway, I'll see what anyone thinks about that when I am back from holiday.
>