On Friday 16 May 2003 12:03, John Pettigrew wrote:
Very few software licences have been ruled on by courts, and (AFAIK) none has a government agency dedicated to enforcing them. In this regard, the GPL is in no worse shape than the vast majority of software licences and yet most sensible companies and people put great store in their licences as both clients and providers.
John
John, Most s/w licenses are writen by lawyers who compose them with 'boiler-plate' phrases, sentences and paragraphs. Boilerplate is by definition wording that has withstood court tests. The lawyers use that *exact* wording that has proved by trial and appeal. No one has yet ruled on an enforcement of the GPL. There have been a few court tests of s/w license terms that are called by the press "Shrink-wrap" agreements, and the courts have affirmed the use of shrink-wrap agreements. The rest of the clauses and terms in common s/w licenses are boiler-plate and as such have been tested and affirmed in court. PeterB -- Proud to use SuSE since 5.2 Loving using SuSE 8.2 MyBlog http://vancampen.org/blog/? --