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

[Martijn van Oosterhout]

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 6:36 PM, Russ Nelson <russ at cloudmade.com> wrote:
> I think it would be
> extremely helpful if the licenses themselves included an explanation for
> non-lawyers, in the way the gpl always did.
>
> Not always a good idea.  If your license has any ambiguities, then a judge
> will go outside your license to see if you've said anything else about the
> meaning of the license.  Potentially, anything you say about the license
> could become part of the license.  So your non-legal explanation actually
> may have legal import.

On the other hand, it's a good thing. In AU you have the Acts
Interpretation Act which explicitly states that any accompanying
rationale documents/discussions/etc to an act/bill must be taken into
account when considering it. The reason is that people aren't gods and
occasionally screw up and it's useful if the judge has the rationale
document saying what the *intended* ramifications were. Yes, the
rationale document is binding but it's often much more readable than
the act itself. If there's a contradiction, well that's what a judge
is for.

Given this licence is breaking new ground I think it's doubly
important to have an official FAQ/rationale/etc so that any future
judge has some proper source explaining the intended end results (as
opposed to the licence itself which only describes the means). You
don't want a judge who knows nothing about computing trying to *guess*
what you're trying to achieve, surely?

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog at gmail.com> http://svana.org/kleptog/