Hi all;
IANAL, but I feel that this discussion is missing some important things and
it might not hurt to get a legal opinion. In fact, the purpose of this post
is to try to widen the legal questions in order to make sure that this is
meeting the community's (and OpenBSD's) needs.
I have a feeling that we are talking apples and oranges here. There are two
issues here that may be confused:
1) Does the misplaced modifier give the PostgreSQL contributors grounds to
sue anyone who sells the software for a fee? The concensus here appears to
be "no" and that is what I am pulling from Greg's email.
2) Does the license leave a redistributor open to the fear of a lawsuit,
however groundless? I have a feeling that the OpenBSD standoff may be more
about this issue than the former one.
I think that the license should be changed. Most lawyers I have ever
interacted with have given advice regarding how to play it safe. So the
question I would ask an IP lawyer is:
If I were looking at redistributing this software (for a fee) under this
license, what advice would you give me? Could I be at risk of being sued by
individual contributors?
Note this is a very different question than "could I win any legal
challenges on this basis?" I suspect that Theo is asking the former while
we are asking the latter.
Also, I am a little confused by Tom's statement that we don't have the right
to modify the license. If I can take the source code, package it up in a
binary-only release, forbid redistribution, charge per-seat licensing fees,
etc. is that not more drastic than changing to a more recent BSD-style
license, as long as the restrictions are the same?
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
