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Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:14:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joe Schaefer <joe_schaefer@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: fair use (was Re: What licenses in category X satisfy criterion
 #2?)
To: legal-discuss@apache.org
In-Reply-To: <3d4032300803190541x87a3406kbbae749f2b675f@mail.gmail.com>
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--- Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 7:28 AM, Joe Schaefer
> <joe_schaefer@yahoo.com> wrote:

> >  I don't think being experts in law is required
> >  for
> >  3rd party licensing.  Simply understanding the
> >  positions of those 3rd parties should be
> >  sufficient,
> >  in situations where the license is ambiguous. 
> >  The (L)GPL licenses are ambiguous primarily in
> >  their scope,  because different lawyers will say
> >  different things
> >  about whether something is or isn't a derivative
> >  work,
> >  or will argue about how broadly the courts will
> >  interpret the "usage" rights of section 117 of
> >  the US
> >  copyright law.  The ASF doesn't have to take a
> >  position
> >  on the scope of the (L)GPL, it is sufficient to
> >  acknowledge the FSF's position as our default
> >  interpretation unless the copyright holder offers
> >  us
> >  a better one.  In the case of JBOSS and
> >  Hibernate,
> >  we have exactly that- a better interpretation of
> >  the LGPL.
> 
> It is slightly more than that.  I'm not going to say
> that what people
> post on websites don't matter, but in cases where
> the actual license
> that someone explicitly and intentionally picks says
> one thing, and
> what people may post on a potentially volatile
> website contradicts
> that license, 

Sorry, I don't see anything I would consider a
contradiction.  Whether or not the (L)GPL family
of licenses crosses dynamically linked files
is something even wikipedia [1] acknowledges as a
point of contention.

> which do you think a jury will pick as
> authoritative?

> If you were a risk-adverse licensee, what would you
> do?

I would seek legal counsel if it mattered to me, 
not blindly rely on what the ASF deems as acceptable.
Is our legal reputation really at stake if we
distributed Hibernate?


[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License


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