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On May 18, the Linux Foundation announced that it had sent a joint letter to the American Law Institute protesting some provisions in the ALI's proposed principles to be applied to the law of software contracts. That was likely the first that many LWN readers had heard of this particular initiative - or, indeed, of the ALI in general. Your editor, being a masochistic sort of person, has plowed through all 305 pages of the principles (which were made official by the ALI on May 20) with an eye toward their effect on free software. What follows is a non-lawyerly summary of what he found.
And it is a heck of a good deal. Reading 305-pages of software license "principles" is truly heroic.
The article also reinforces the often-expressed bewilderment by Groklaw readers that the law seems like a big mushy mess, and laws themselves are nothing more than brawl-starters, and the best-funded litigant wins via attrition. It didn't seem like PJ ever understood this viewpoint; she was always full of praise for smart judges and brilliant lawyers, and SCO dragging baseless lawsuits out for years was business as usual. From the LWN article:
Quoting:
In the U.S. justice system, the written law which emerges from the legislative branch is just a starting point. The actual law that one must follow is determined by the rulings of a wide variety of courts across the country. At times, divergent rulings can result in different interpretations of the same law in different regions. The process of creating a coherent set of high-court precedents can be long and messy, and it can create a great deal of uncertainty while it is happening. Uncertainty about the law is never a good thing.
But the uncertainty seems to be a fundamental and deliberate foundation of law.
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The article also reinforces the often-expressed bewilderment by Groklaw readers that the law seems like a big mushy mess, and laws themselves are nothing more than brawl-starters, and the best-funded litigant wins via attrition. It didn't seem like PJ ever understood this viewpoint; she was always full of praise for smart judges and brilliant lawyers, and SCO dragging baseless lawsuits out for years was business as usual. From the LWN article:
But the uncertainty seems to be a fundamental and deliberate foundation of law.