Re: Licence

Steve Crawford wrote:
> Bill Moran wrote:
>> In response to "Jonathan Tripathy" <jonnyt(at)abpni(dot)co(dot)uk>:
>>
>>> I know the PostgreSQL licence is "based" on the BSD licence, however
>>> the line which says "without fee" rings alarm bells, even though I
>>> think it means that "you don't have ot pay anything to the PostgreSQL
>>> developers" rather than "if you distribute, you must not charge a fee"
>>>
>>
>> The "without fee" part means that you don't owe anyone a fee for doing
>> so.
>>
>>
> We all know that, but the wording certainly is ambiguous and could be
> interpreted either way. Reminds me of Ed Asner in the old "Remenber, you
> can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor." nuke-plant retiree
> sketch on "Saturday Night Live." (When he left, they argued about the
> interpretation and eventually decided to drain the reactor. Final line
> to waitress on the beach: "Remember, you can't stare too long at a
> radiation cloud...")
>
> It seems to me that ", without fee, and without a written agreement"
> could be stripped out entirely.
>
> But I am not a lawyer. And while there is no problem asking the question
> here, if there is any actual money/liability on the line then relying on
> legal advice from geeks is about as sensible as asking your attorney for
> a custom kernel module. That goes for the whole stack of components in
> your system, not just PostgreSQL which is about the least likely to
> cause licensing problems.

In at least some jurisdictions, if one party to a contract writes the language
without input or emendation from the other party, that allows the other party
to impose any reasonable interpretation on the wording. IOW, ambiguity is
resolved in favor of the party who had no choice in the wording.

That would mean the licensee gets to determine what "without fee" means, not
the licensor.

--
Lew