From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <002301c33669$e2f6d8c0$e3944251@insultant.net>
From: "boyd, rounin" <boyd@insultant.net>
To: <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
References: <20030619093435.13228.qmail@mail.dirac.net>
Subject: Re: [9fans] The new ridiculous license
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Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 15:51:26 +0200
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> If the license is a contract, that contract is not enforceable as such in
court.
> The reason (at least in English law, perhaps someone can comment on
> NY/USA law) is that for a contract to be created, there must be an exchange
> of value - i.e. Lucent gives you the software, you have to give them something
> of value (e.g. cash) in return.

UK law, a contract has three things:

    - offer [the thing being sold]
    - acceptance [when you say 'i wanna buy it']
    - consideration [the thing given, usually money, so that you get the thing
you want]

that's a common law thing.

contracts are usually things that you sign that both sides are bound by.

however, having said that, in sweden (god forbid) if there's a typo in the
contract and you buy, say, volvo for 1 �re, the court will quash the
contract because it's 'obviously' 'wrong'.

i suspect that the 'problem' with the plan 9 licence is because lucent is a
us company who must comply with ITAR, the Denied Parties List, and
various other export controls --  take it up with the us govt.  end user
certificates, etc etc ...

eg. i can tell you of the existance of the Denied Parties List [DPL], but i
cannot tell you who's on it.  it's so long ago i did the DPL stuff i don't
even want to talk about it, but it still applies to me.

i do find it _hysterical_ that the BSD boys want the plan 9 compilers.