Richard Laager <rlaa...@debian.org> writes: > As I have said before: I think that computer programmers have a > tendency to treat licenses as if they are self-executing (and precise > like software).
Agreed, this is often a challenge when technical people discuss legal matters, and it helps to keep this in mind. > From what I can tell, the legal system does not operate that way, and > actual lawyers make distinctions based on harm/damages or lack > thereof. My experience with lawyers is that circumstances, expectations and intentions are more relevant than damages. Damages are more relevant when assessing compensation, not when deciding who is right. If someone has a claim to something and reasonable can expect certain things in a situation, and that is violated, there is a legal case even if you can make a technical argument that the person is wrong citing various paragraphs in return. This is often frustrating for technical people, feeling they are "right" and that circumstances doesn't matter. > I think Debian should take the position that Apache-2.0 and > GPL-2.0-only are compatible in practice. I don't think that is a good position to be in. I believe it would be better to work with rights holders to work out problems rather than to ignore requests and throw legal arguments at them. /Simon
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