Re: Lawyer's evaluation

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Miles" == Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

    Miles> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

    >> I asked our lawyer to evaluate a recent version of the
    >> proposal.

[He said:]

    em> In legal terms I think the suggestion is valid, and
    em> introduces no problems.  In practical terms I like what he
    em> is saying, not in all details, and believe he's on the
    em> right track.

I suspect that a couple of those "details" have already been pointed
out by David Kastrup, and in one case I offered the following:

For

"You need not accept or decline the License; you simply exercise those
rights, as defined in the License, at your option."

substitute

"You need not accept or decline the License at this time.  At your
option, at any time you may simply exercise those additional rights,
which implies acceptance."

    >> A statement that "Emacs is free software," and a button to get
    >> more information on free software seems possible to me.

For the button, once "free software" has been mentioned in the
summary, just label the second button "More About Free Software" and
adjust the preceding text accordingly.  This works for me, but I'm
probably too close to the idea to judge.

    Miles> Yeah, I agree -- in my mind, perhaps the _most_ important
    Miles> (important to me, that is :-) thing to say while you've got
    Miles> the user's attention, is `This is Free Software (as in
    Miles> freedom), there's a lot more of it, and a great community
    Miles> to back it up.  Wanna join?'

How about

"The following General Public License states and protects additional
rights that you possess." ==>

"The following General Public License states and protects additional
rights, the rights that constitute true software freedom, that you
possess."

OR

"The following General Public License states and protects additional
rights, the rights that make GNU Emacs truly free software, that you
possess."


-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.