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

[Russ Nelson]

On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:54 PM, Matt Amos wrote:
>  us trying to read a complex license
> without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without
> comments.

They're mostly hard to read because they're tedious in their detail.   
Legal writing isn't actually THAT impenetrable, if you can stay awake  
(no, seriously, I can only read 2-3 licenses at a time before I start  
to nod off.  Takes me DAYS to read all the OSI-approved licenses).

> 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.

Yes, well, since a legal document is written for a customer, the  
lawyer explains it in confidence to the customer.  Everyone else is  
supposed to rely on the text of the license itself.  Or, at least,  
that's my experience of how it's supposed to go.  I may be wrong.

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

Oh, that's from the people who've ridden home with him in the back  
seat of his convertible.

--
Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson
russ at cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson

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