Re: responses to licensing discussion

Jan Wieck wrote:

> I'm in doubt why none of the other open source projects ever
> felt the need to enforce license agreement in this way while
> most commercial players do. Maybe it's something we don't
> have to worry about, but what if so? What if we all have
> already one foot in jail and just don't know?

This is exactly the the kind of sentiment that the UCITA proponents
sought to make as widespread as possible.

> Oh boy, what
> about all the patches, modules, whatnot I contributed to
> other open source projects during the past 20 years? Can I
> sleep well tonight?

They thought about that, too. UCITA is designed to be applied
retroactively, so you can sleep well knowing that there's nothing you
can do to prevent the Maryland residents from suing you for the
damages they suffered from your code over the last 20 years. Now if it
is true that the UCITA was meant to be a weapon of intimidation, it
seems to have started working: everybody is at least concerned, if not
scared. But it definitely goes overboard with its retroactive
capability, which actually makes it less intimidating: what's the use
in worrying about the future if we all have one foot in jail because
of our deeds in the past?

Back to work, folks ...

--Gene