Re: Final text of GPL v3 (original) (raw)

On Sun, 1 Jul 2007 10:31:00 -0700 Sean Kellogg wrote:

[...]

I will try to explain a few things based on what I know from law school. First up, there is a pretty well established definition for what constitutes "legal advice." It can be phrased as: "particular courses of action in response to particular facts." The particularity is key.

Here a good pair of examples --

Not Legal Advice: Q: Is it true that a judge can reduce your traffic ticket. A: Yes.

Legal Advice: Q: I got a traffic ticket for going 20 miles over the speed limit, what should I do? A: Go to the judge and argue for a decrease in the fine.

My case was:

Q: Could this requirement be interpreted more liberally? A: I wish it could, but I am afraid it cannot... :-(

Frankly speaking, it seems more similar to your first example, than to your second one...

I mean: we were not talking about particular facts. Iain Nicol was not telling me that he modified a GPLv3'd work and got sued by upstream because his newly implemented interactive interface does not display Appropriate Legal Notices. I did not suggest a particular course of action. I did not answer "the requirement cannot be interpreted more liberally, but you can instead tell the judge that ..."

What we were doing was discussing about possible interpretations of a clause in a just-published license...

[...]

Where Francesco went wrong, in my opinion, is giving a definite answer to a definite question about a third-party license.

Is "I am afraid it cannot" a definite answer? It does not even seem to express certainty...

I am not an English native speaker, so I could be wrong about what sounds as a definite answer to an English mothertongue's ear. Should I begin to add IANAENS, to the list of disclaimers?

-- http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through? ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4

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