Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: disclaiming warranties
Author: David McCusker Posted: 9/11/2000; 9:36:17 AM Topic: Guido and Richard Msg #: 21174 (In response to 21164) Prev/Next: 21173 / 21175
William Crim: Here are some links you might want to see. [snipped]I gave 60 seconds to the MPL link to verify what it was, and another 60 seconds to http://eon.law.harvard.edu/h2o/property/alternatives/main.html in order to search for where "contract" appears to find the sense of what is being conveyed. I see no contradiction with my own viewpoint.
William Crim: These all seem to assume that the license(even the free ones) will come under contract law(Though they are also covered under copyright law).
One might say everything comes under contract law. So one can find contracts in licenses. But then you might not. A license is not necessarily a contract. This was my original point and I see no reason to alter my view.
Contracts have certain elements, and folks trying to use them online go through the motions of making all the elements appear. The legal folks are discussing whether these are indeed contracts just because some trivial attempt has been made to go through the motions.
An oversimplified version of a generalized contract skeleton goes like this. I offer you an agreement that in exchange for A, you get B. Then you accept. We need A, B, an offer, and an acceptance. These are blurry, because human activity is blurry. So any discussion of whether they happen in a license is an argument. That's why lawyers argue. Arguing is what lawyers do, just like programmers code.
Around 1980 or so, I took a business law class in college. The teacher was a wryly amusing practitioner who was chock full of dry wit, and took glee in discussing basic games in legal conventions. So while I know I'm ignorant of fine legal matters, I still have enough of a glimmer to tell up from down in general terms.
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