[OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? -> How to make a nightmare come true!

[Matt Amos]

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Russ Nelson <russ at cloudmade.com> wrote:
> On Mar 5, 2009, at 1:06 PM, Matt Amos wrote:
>> ummm.... good? as long as the explanation doesn't contradict the
>> license, what is the problem?
>
> The problem is that you've got an impedance mismatch.  If you comment about
> your license, it can become PART OF your license, which means that you need
> to be careful that everything you say has a proper legal meaning, which
> breaks the idea of explaining things without using legalese.

i assumed from your explanation that the judge, realising that he's
going outside the license for context, wouldn't apply the same
hardcore legal interpretation to these comments.

in any case, isn't the cat out of the bag anyway with the comments on
the co-ment.net site? wouldn't a court look to those as well?

>> but if the code confuses you then you read the comments for
>> enlightenment, right?
>
>   /* Add one to the length */
>   length += l;

as you said: "comments should explain things that *aren't* in the
code", not repeat the code (incorrectly) in english. your example of a
bad comment doesn't answer my question: if you are reading code and
you do not understand why it is written the way it is, don't you read
the comments to find out?

to turn the analogy around: us trying to read a complex license
without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without
comments.

>> i don't think you're saying that code without
>> comments is OK (although a "heated discussion" to have on another day,
>> perhaps), so why should a license without an explanation be OK?
>
> Code: interpreted by computer; comments: interpreted by a human.

code is interpreted both by a computer and humans, but i understand your point.

> License: interpreted by a human; comments: interpreted by a human.  And my
> point from above is that the barrier between the two is not hard and fast.

i understand, but lawyers have been doing this for a while and surely
they have a way of explaining stuff to people who aren't going to
understand hardcore legal documents. maybe we could have a background
image repeating "without prejudice" all over the document? just as a
compiler shouldn't interpret comments, isn't there a way of shielding
comments from the court?

>> did you come out of steve's evil basement portal of dooom? :-P
>
> I don't understand why people think steve has an evil portal of doom in his
> basement.  It's in his attic.

if thats in his attic, what were all those ghastly and inhuman screams
coming from his basement?

cheers,

matt