[pmwiki-users] Commercialism in PmWiki

[Carlo Strozzi]

On Sat, Aug 26, 2006 at 09:13:12PM +1200, mike moller wrote:
> 
> The issue for PHBs and the more so for the more intelligent of their
> colleagues goes back to a fundamental point of contract law. There are a few
> things that must be present in order to establish a contract that is legally
> binding on all parties to it. One of these is "considerations" Briefly this
> means that a binding contract must have both something tangible that passes
> between vendor and purchaser AND ALSO something tangible that PASSES BETWEEN
> PURCHASER AND VENDOR. The adoption of a GPL licensed software product by a
> corporation fails to create a contractual relationship because it fails to
> pass a consideration from the purchaser to the vendor. Therefore if all
> turns to custard the corporation has no-one they can sue because they
> haven't established a binding contract.

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. Furthermore, the
GPL takes effect only if there is redistribution of a work, which is not
the case with the passing of a software product by a company to their
employees to perform their office work.

> PM is proposing in his new licence option to get these guy's off the hook
> which is great and deserves our, the PmWiki Community's, support. I suggest
> we just let him get on with it so he can devote his time to further
> developing the product rather than arguing with us lot.

Well, I'm certainly not trying to get Pm reverting is plans :-)
I am just expressing my considerations, as he asked for on the list.
In fact Pm may be right and I may be wrong, only time will tell.

Carlo

-- 
Software Patents kill Innovation: say NO to Software Patents!
I Brevetti Software uccidono l'innovazione: di NO ai Brevetti Software!