License Framework: Develop Best Practices

[Matthew Seaman]

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On 15/06/2010 07:46:27, Eric wrote:
> It would seem from reading the various posting that the two missing features
> are some sort of clean way of saying "this license or higher" and possibly
> something along the lines of "like this licence" for cases where 99% is the
> same as an existing OS licence, but I guess that last one comes down to a
> point of purpose.  Is the licence framework supposed to be a solid legal
> structure or is it much like the pkg-descriptions just something we can
> filter against and use to help guide us to the ports we want to install?

I don't think the FreeBSD project could afford to have this license
cataloging scheme regularly inspected by appropriate legal counsel for
each of the various different jurisdictions around the world and for
them to approve it as accurate and legally watertight.

Given potential liabilities should the project attempt a binding
framework without such checking, it would be horribly exposed should
some FreeBSD user suffer and attempt to recoup consequential losses.

Therefore, this should only be done on a 'best efforts' basis, and there
should be prominent warnings that the license data may or may not be
accurate and that end users *must* make their own verification that all
software they are using is appropriately licensed.

I feel that at this point I should declare that IANAL, so take
everything I say here not as advice, but as my personal opinion.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

- -- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
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