[opensource-dev] Third party viewer policy: commencement date

Morgaine morgaine.dinova at googlemail.com
Mon Mar 22 09:26:26 PDT 2010


On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Kent Quirk (Q Linden) <q at lindenlab.com>wrote:

> I'm emphatically not a lawyer and I don't speak for our legal team. But:
>
> * Legalese is a specialized language. It's not strictly English, and it's
> not always amenable to "common sense" interpretation. Think of lawyers as
> people who write code in an underspecified language for a buggy compiler,
> and you begin to understand why legalese is the way it is. There's a lot of
> law that isn't stated, but is actually implied by the context of the
> existing settled law. What that means is that if you're not a lawyer, you
> probably shouldn't be attempting to interpret legal documents -- especially
> not for other people....[cut]. If you have legal questions about the
> implication of documents, you should ask a lawyer, not a mailing list.



This paraphrases quite accurately as "Our lawyers can write any old nonsense
and you or I cannot question it, because the language of lawyers is beyond
our comprehension."

If you truly believe the words you wrote (not my paraphrasing), then I'm not
surprised that you are in such deep trouble with this community which is
well versed in GPL license legalities.

If your statement is accurate, then your lawyers are effectively out of
control by anyone in the Lab who is not a lawyer.  I recommend that you shed
your inferiority complex with respect to lawyers, and TELL THEM what you
want written, not vice versa.  The tail is wagging the dog currently.


Morgaine.





====================================

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Kent Quirk (Q Linden) <q at lindenlab.com>wrote:

> I'm emphatically not a lawyer and I don't speak for our legal team. But:
>
> * Legalese is a specialized language. It's not strictly English, and it's
> not always amenable to "common sense" interpretation. Think of lawyers as
> people who write code in an underspecified language for a buggy compiler,
> and you begin to understand why legalese is the way it is. There's a lot of
> law that isn't stated, but is actually implied by the context of the
> existing settled law. What that means is that if you're not a lawyer, you
> probably shouldn't be attempting to interpret legal documents -- especially
> not for other people. Similarly, if you're not a programmer, attempting to
> interpret program source code is a risky business. Programmers are
> especially susceptible to trying to interpret legal documents using a normal
> dictionary because they're logical thinkers. That doesn't always work. If
> you have legal questions about the implication of documents, you should ask
> a lawyer, not a mailing list.
>
> * Similarly, any comment by one of Linden's lawyers in this forum or any
> other could possibly be treated as legally binding. That also goes for
> Linden employees, especially those with any seniority. So you're unlikely to
> get further remarks or "clarifications", except general statements that
> don't address specific questions. The policy was revised based on comments
> on this list and elsewhere. That's probably a pretty good indication that
> Linden Lab's lawyers now think it's clear enough to state its intent and to
> stand up in court if they need it to.
>
>        Q
>
> On Mar 21, 2010, at 12:55 PM, Carlo Wood wrote:
>
> > On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 05:04:58PM +0100, Tayra Dagostino wrote:
> >> maybe we cannot sync.... this isn't a restriction against development
> >> based on GPL, is a restriction against ability to connect LL grid with
> >> a 3rd party viewer...
> >
> > No it's not. If that were the case it would say "User", not "Developer".
> > Also, I don't read "you will not be able to connect", I read "you will
> > be liable for any damages". Quite a different thing.
>
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