[DUG] Open source licences

[Grant Brown]

Hi to all,

I have kept an eye on this thread with some interest, and whilst I am 
not a lawyer I don't believe that open source licenses of any nature 
would stand up in court.

Nor do I think much of click through license agreements. You need a 
written and signed contract not an action to form the basis of an agreement.

After the agreement has been enacted by way of signing by all parties 
then yes actions matter but not before. This certainly applies to 
construction contracts, however OS's may be different.

Being open source the code in question by default is placed in a public 
forum, which I would have thought negates the license.

If that were not the case then every newspaper in the world would 
attract a license agreement.

Being open source (ie free) then the code has no value so there can be 
no loss by the owner, hence no claim for loss.

The other interesting point is that if you are going to place code in 
open source, then why place any kind of agreement on it at all, kind of 
defeats the purpose.

Also where does the agreement start, anyone could just say the code was 
given to them and did not download it from the owners site and hence not 
agreed to any sort of license.

Has any open source license ever been tested in court, it would be 
interesting to read the transcript.

As I said before I'm not a lawyer, but I think one would be very hard 
pressed to run a case based upon open source code and some sort of 
perceived loss due to a end user agreement.

My personal view is that if something is provided as open source then 
its open source, not open source with a huge "BUT" attached.

-- 
Regards,
Grant Brown

Product Development Manager
Phone : 02 4229 1185
Mobile : 0412 926 995
Email : grant at sitedoc.com.au
Web : www.sitedoc.com.au

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