[pmwiki-users] Commercialism in PmWiki

[Peter Brink]

Patrick R. Michaud skrev:
> On Sat, Aug 26, 2006 at 05:20:20PM +0200, Carlo Strozzi wrote:
>> [...]
>> Hmm, IANAL, but a few (european) lwayers I talked to consider the GPL
>> to be a contract: I give you something under certain conditions, and
>> those conditions may or may not involve money. So, at the very least,
>> the point of the GPL not being a contract is debatable. 
> 
> I totally agree it's debatable; the degree of obligations placed
> on licensees/licensors lots of licenses (both open source and not)
> are still being formed.
> 
> In the case of the GPL (and perhaps it's different in Europe), Larry
> Rosen[1] says that the GPL "makes the explicit point that it wants
> nothing of acceptance or consideration... There is no contract."
> 

Larry Rosen's statement is only true for the U.S. In Europe (and 
elsewhere) the GPL is a contract. The concept "consideration" is a 
common law construct that has no direct equivalence in Europe. Under the 
various European legislations, the GPL is a beneficial (i.e. 
non-onerous) contract, the implications of which varies from 
jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The important point is that the legal 
concept "license" is, in fact, a strictly U.S. construct, elsewhere 
"licenses" are known as and treated as contracts.

/Peter Brink