Why the JMRI decision matters

Posted Aug 23, 2008 17:19 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
In reply to: Why the JMRI decision matters by mattmelton
Parent article: Why the JMRI decision matters

While I always have to bite my tongue in these discussions because I'm not a copyright lawyer, I am a contract lawyer, so I can effectively argue the other side here. I believe all the open source copyright licenses could be made indisputably contracts with only slightly different wording. (For example, substitute "A and B agree ..." for "A grants to B ..."

I don't see lack of privity. The parties to the dispute are actual parties to the contract; you can't get any more privity than that.

And I see plenty of consideration, of the regular kind -- no need to resort to detrimental reliance. Consideration by the author is permission to copy. Consideration by the distributor is giving people the source code and all that. Giving people source code must be of value to the author or he wouldn't have tried so hard to get the distributor to do it.

Here's a settled contract scenario that is similar to what goes on with free software:

I publish in the newspaper an offer to pay $100 to anyone who works a four hour shift at any local charity. So you work a shift. You and I are parties to a contract, your consideration is the work you did, mine is the $100, and I owe you $100.

Someone who takes up a restrictive licence and is bound by it ...

The only person bound by a license is the licensor. So what you mean is, "someone who agrees to certain things in exchange for a license ..."