markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk said:
Does the GPL specify a jurisdiction? I don't remember it being there.
No, on the contrary. Since Free Software is often a product of many individuals in many different countries, restricting the jurisdiction to a specific place restricts the rights of those, who have contributed or will contribute, but do not reside in this jurisdiction.
In addition, the FSF worries about the following scenario: Someone decides to modify some software and puts a jurisdiction in country X on it. If that country X then has laws that restrict any of the Freedoms in the Free Software, this software would become unfree.
Therefore, a license that specifies a jurisdiction is considered incompatible with the GPL. That is why I started wondering about the Mandrake license. I think the intent of that license is really just to say: If someone insists to sue Mandrake for anything on their distribution they have to do it in Paris. I was wondering if that is OK.
- Josef
Josef Dalcolmo dalcolmo@vh-s.de writes:
Therefore, a license that specifies a jurisdiction is considered incompatible with the GPL. That is why I started wondering about the Mandrake license. I think the intent of that license is really just to say: If someone insists to sue Mandrake for anything on their distribution they have to do it in Paris. I was wondering if that is OK.
What exactly does the license apply to? If it's the distribution as a whole then it may be legal.
The distribution as a whole can be seen as a collection of copyrighted works that can be copyrighted as a whole independently of the individual components. Mandrake can choose any license they like for it.
Bernhard