Comment by jrmg
3 days ago
It seems obvious that this ‘may’ is the ‘may’ used in the sense of granting permission: “you may go to the restroom”, “you may begin eating”, “you may ask questions now”, “you may kiss the bride” etc.
All these are clear. The wedding officiant isn’t saying “You might have permission to kiss the bride! Just try it and we’ll find out! Ha ha!”
To interpret this as saying that you might be licensed is just as nonsensical as that in this context. It’s in a file named “LICENSE.txt” explicitly meant to describe the license terms.
Would ‘are’ be better? I’d say yes, but it’s silly to argue that this isn’t proper English for granting permission.
But it is saying "You may be licensed to use source code..." which is analogous to "You may have permission to kiss the bride" if being licensed means having permission. It could mean that Mattermost may have licensed it to you in one way or the other, or neither, at their discretion. If it was written like a priest, it would have said "You may use the source code..." and this doubt wouldn't exist.
Licenses are not about what things "seem", their text should be clear enough to hold up to legal scrutiny, not just what some person who speaks some local variant of English thinks is obvious.
Even if you're a lawyer, whether it's obvious to you is irrelevant: it has to be obvious to everyone. And if it's not (and it should be abundantly clear that it's not, given the linked discussion), the license needs fixing.
Speaking only for myself here. But I don't have the arrogance to assume that I can interpret legalese the way I interpret English. When shit goes to court, saying here's what I thought "may" means is not going to be a legal defense strategy. There's a reason I hire lawyers for this kind of shit because they are really good at their job and I won't pretend I know their job better than they do.
you'd be surprised how much your command of the english language translates into legalise.
Yes, there's a definite codex of legal terms that have specific legal meaning but sound like "open to interpretation" english, but, those are vanishingly small.
Largely, if you read defensively and try to read what is not said, then you get very very far.
Source: spent about half-a-decade with very expensive swiss lawyers.
> Largely, if you read defensively and try to read what is not said, then you get very very far.
How far is "very, very far"? Is it far enough that, if there were a lawsuit, my liability would truly be capped at €10,000? Because that's how much liability I can afford. If that "very very far" guarantees such a limit, then yes, I agree it is very very far. But my experience tells me that without formal legal training, I cannot be confident that I have interpreted legal language correctly enough to rely on that conclusion.
Open source licenses are often relatively readable, but corporate contracts and other legal texts, including those from companies that market themselves as open source in questionable ways, can contain subtleties and loopholes. As a layperson, it is difficult to know how much exposure I might have if I misunderstand a detail and act in contradiction of the license terms.
Perhaps we are simply on opposite sides of the D-K effect here. Or maybe you simply are good with legalese and I'm being unnecessarily skeptical.
If experience with lawyers matters, I have spent many years working with lawyers across Europe. If that taught me anything, it is to avoid assuming that I can reliably interpret legal language without proper training.
Yes, I can usually grasp perhaps 80 percent of what a contract is saying at a high level. But in every contract we reviewed, lawyers consistently found issues or implications I would not have noticed. They then either refined the contract or advised taking a calculated risk. So I think it is reasonable for me to remain cautious about my own ability to interpret legal language with confidence.
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> saying here's I thought "may" means is not going to be a legal defense strategy
It is - it might not be successful (the court may rule against you) - but if what you thought "may" meant was close to what a "reasonable person" would have thought, you may be ruled against with no or low penalty.
> It is - it might not be successful (the court may rule against you)
Exactly what I said.
The counterpoint is that three sentences away, there's a clear "You are licensed to use the source code" for the non-server parts. It can certainly be argued that there's an intentional difference. Extended court cases have been fought over mere punctuation. In any case, the FUD that this creates is enough to make anyone think twice about reusing the server code, especially as they have refused to clarify for many years now.
Also, the ambiguity is not only in the "you may be" part, but also in the "to create compiled versions" part. Open source is more than creating compiled versions of source code.
My read: We provide you with two options, either: 1. Follow Apache License 2. Pay us and you don't need to follow Apache License terms
This really seems like a dual license situation where they are saying "Let's encourage Open Source, but if you want to just use our work to make yourself rich and not even acknowledge you're using us then fuck you, pay us."
I expect this to become more common as companies routinely infringe on OSS licenses while simultaneously many companies are hesitant to use OSS because of licenses. This at least gives an out for the good actors and allow devs to make money (other than being reliant on donations, because... that's worked out...).
But maybe I'm misunderstanding? If so, I don't know what I'm missing
> But maybe I'm misunderstanding? If so, I don't know what I'm missing
You're apparently missing the two points I made in the post you are replying to, or at the very least you're not responding to them. By which I don't mean to say they are necessarily valid points.
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how you jump from AGPL to apache?
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