If a child under 18 enters into contract, and is later sued for breach of that contract, the minor child can assert minority as an absolute defense.
Alternatively, a minor child may disaffirm a contract at any time. This is usually performed by a writing on the minor's behalf, or in court with a motion to set aside the transaction.
Words like 'likely,' 'substantially,' 'reasonable,' 'reasonably likely,' 'may,' 'might,' 'could,' 'probable...' the list goes on...
This type of language in a license renders it vague from the parties' points of view.
This means that to end the license would require courts and a jury to decide whether the relevant facts of the case fit into the box that the language in question seeks to make.
'Revocation will occur when event X occurs.' This is an example of concrete legalese.
'Revocation will occur if event X becomes reasonably likely.' This is vague legalese designed to give the licensor discretion (read leeway) to decide when to sue.
To avoid vague legalese, be sure that the license speaks in terms of 'will,' 'becomes definite,' 'is' etc. Instead of likelihoods, it should speak in terms of definite contingencies.
If one is careful of this, then the licensor and licensee can be sure when a term is violated or not.
Here is a simple test that one should apply to any term or provision in a license: "How many different ways can I violate this provision?" The closer the number gets to 1, the better.
Email me; I'd like to discuss things with you if you wouldn't mind.
I'd be interested in learning more about your involvement with linux, OSS, etc. from the perspective of a legal professional.
I'll be finishing law school here in a few months. I don't plan on practicing law much either. I have a business plan;>.
Ain't nothin' new buddy... Ask Shakespear..
on
Linux and Lawyers
·
· Score: 1
He said it best "First thing we do, Let's kill all the lawyers."
Since I am one, I often reflect on this quaint little addage.
All it means is that bitching and bickering have been around for a long time. And as someone who has had first hand experience with divorce, criminal, bankruptcy, etc., etc., it's usually the clients that want to get dirty, not the lawyers.
The lawyers just say "hell, ya! we'll smear 'em for ya," and the client sits back and loves watching his big guns trample the opposition. At least that is the perception.
It's an sick fucking world my friend; lawyers are merely its mouthpiece...
All this article states is that the IP Attorney market will be replaced by transaction practices.
In other words, drop your IP attorney for a good Contract/Licencing Attorney.
As much as you hate us, you can't get rid of us.
Some of us do work for free (i.e., me)
But then again, I'm almost certain that I'm the only lawyer who uses Debian on a full-time basis.
If there are any lawyer readers here, email me and I'll show you how to be a much stronger force on the internet than the rest of your M$-o-phile colleagues.
PEACE
SO501 + Debian 2.1 = fast and easy baby!
on
MS Office for Linux
·
· Score: 1
I truly would prefer to use WP8 over SO5, but on my system WP8's font rendering can be illegible at times.
SO501 on the other runs wonderfully. No crashes, no problems. It's fast.
When I ran Caldera + KDE1.0 it was pretty slow and it crashed.
Thank god I moved to the superior distro. I was hesitant to download SO over again because (you know why)...
I'm glad I did. Even the browser is fast enough for me. I don't mind it at all. This prevents me from having to browse with netscape while writing docs (a serious memory saver).
I'm pretty satisfied with so501. I'll hold off on final judgment when wp9 and Corel's Office 2000 comes out on linux. But if they don't make their fonts work right in X, I'll be a SO loyalist...
At real technical institutions, (i.e., the UC system, CalTech, MIT), unix is the development tool.
Windows is not taught. I'm not a programmer so I can't really say why exactly, but all the students I know who learn CS learn it in linux, because it is a unix one can afford.
If you think, gcc, gdb, emacs, vi, etc. are tinker toys, then you are a tinker toy.`
My girlfriend's cs classes at uc davis even banned them from using PICO (why?) because they wanted them to learn real editors (i.e., vi/emacs). So there.
Buddy, you're a commercial, a T-Shirt; your a 30-second sound byte.
I use linux now for everything. I've discovered that for a profession that is entirely engaged in text documents, linux is the answer.
Now that legal research has switched to the internet, lawyers (and other info research oriented professions) need a computer that can stay on the internet all day, dowload hundreds of pages of text/html files, and never cough.
I've lost hundreds of hours over the years do the same in a Windows environment. My system has crashed and burned baby!
So when you say, 'use windows to be more productive.' I beg to differ. Who remembers to hit the save button every five minutes to ensure no information loss.
In fact, in the legal setting those lost hours may not be billable (i.e., they are the fault of the attorney's negligence in using something defective).
No, Linux has been a godsend for me. My uptime is permanent, My 56k modem connection pulls info at 10K/sec. (yes it's true 'insmod bsd_comp && insmod ppp_deflate).
I work on legal issues for debian. Nothing could be better. When I share documents with my colleagues, I show them how they can edit documents in netscape's 'composer' and everyone can share no matter what wprocessor they use. Now the legal market is fully balkanized with users of wp-dos, Word9x, and WP6-8. There are a rediculous number of doc formatters.
I say compose in plain text/html, edit in plain text/html. Post info to intranet server. Format in your wordprocessor.
Needless to say. I never have Netscape composer crash on me. But for serious writing, I use PICO(TM).
I'd use vi, but I never learned how to make it word wrap. emacs is the same way. Although now I write html in emacs.
Give Joe Six pack the following linux configuration. xdm starts on boot, wmaker comes up. Big square icons for the following (wp, or staroffice, netscape, terminal). Tell them, in the black window type 'pon.'
There you go. Browser, wordprocessor. ppp connection. What else is there for Joe Six pack. Joe's gonna love how much faster his internet connection is now.
If Microsoft hired you... Well I can see why their products crash so much. If you can't spell, write a complete sentence, or use proper grammar, it becomes obvious what is wrong with microsoft.
I thought MS Word had a spell check, and a grammar check. Use it.
As to linux crashing... I bought a dell laptop and a few months later they sent me a Win98 upgrade. That day I saw on the new how Bill was demonstrating Win98. He used a scanner and the damn thing locked up on him. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
There was a press release a while back. You say GNU/Linux. Only debian is Debian GNU/Linux. Debian, GNOME, emacs, etc. are part of the GNU project. So you gotta love em.
Debian is a better distro not because of taste or preference, but because objective standards (i.e., stability, upgrade, quality of packages overall, user support, etc. etc.) is better. If there are objective standards for making an evaluation, then the evaluation is valid. RedHat has one thing going for it--hardware detection. Debian is just better. I'm no closed minded zealot. I spent a full year trying out the various distributions. I've tried all that run on x86, and used them for at least one month for many hours. Debian really is easier, faster, stabler, easier to upgrade, etc. Dial the internet (type 'pon' or 'wvdial'); upgrade your distro (apt-get update; apt-get upgrade); install something (apt-get install something.deb). Have any window manager, have libc5 and glibc2 , old libs, new libs, any mta, any news server, any mua. Anything that runs on linux can run on debian. You slack folks can even compile tar.gz stuff to run. I have the 2.2 kernel, and the pcmcia-cs tar.gz stuff going; I did the same for PINE (then I packaged it... http://ompages.com/debian/pkgs/pine/pine.html). No, I'm not committed to debian because of some irrational exhuberance for any old distro. I spend a long time evaluating and deciding what was better. Debian is definitely and unequivocably(sp?), the best. Try debian, try it right. If you have any troubled go to irc.us.debian.org #debian and debian-user-request@lists.debian.org and get help fast (like real time support folks). Don't be afraid, you can do it.
I know that debian is really easy to install. But newbies go crazy with figuring out what hardware settings they need for X. If debian had an install that did all the video hardware detections (and set it up right) we'd be the king distro... This would be especially wonderful for laptop users. Now that there's a neomagic-xserver, there is no reason not to.
You won't because RH is so easy to install. But I guarantee you that if you install debian you will love it. The release was delayed for one package 'dpkg.' What that tells you is that debian is serious about stable releases. I upgraded to slink 4 months ago and no package breaks or crashes. Yesterday I apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and in about 2 hours I had a very very stable and fast debian super distro. My 56k modem pulls this website down between 5kbps and 12. My system is faster and more stable than yours, and I don't need the worlds greatest hardware to do it.
Debian is not 'just another distro.' It's a very mature and widely used distro. Without marketing it's #2. All debian needs is an installer that kicks RH's ass, and RH will be contributing to debian.
I'm a lowly law student with a bit of a commercial aspiration. It concerns a networking service aimed at businesses with a special need for confidential communications. I'm going to roll a custom distro based on debian that can be installed on pc/servers to make a cheap but secure server/network. By Dec 1999, I hope to be ready to offer these services. Then, I would begin implementation mid-2000. I think this idea has huge ramifications and can translate into other business opportunities later. I'm a student, so I plan on starting from a shoe-string. Since this is a service, it will not need too much start-up capital. I hate to seek commercial promotion here, but my isolation dictates communication where I can. Email me.
The real question here is: Who the real party in interest? IOW, who owns Linux such that [it] would be injured by GPL violation. In this case, it's Linus (if it's kernel stuff violated). If it's GNU stuff violated, it's GNU. As much as we like to think of linux as owned by everone, in a legal sense the only person who can sue is someone who has a traditional ownership interest. Since Linux has the final say, he's the owner (in the courts' eyes). For the community ownership theory to fly, linus would have to vest his interest in linux 'to all the world' or something like that. In addition, whatever part of the the linux kernel that was violated could be traced to the author. The author (who had his or her code entered into the kernel) has a copyright on that code, and can sue for GPL violation too. Thus, Linus and whoever wrote the specific code that was used to violate the GPL are the real parties in interest. The real parties in interest are the only ones suffering legal damages. I'm sure Linus, at least, will take action.
I run X at 800x600 at 24bpp. I have a dell desktop too. I actually think my laptop is faster even though it's a 200 v. 266 on my desktop with 2/3 more memory. For some reason, the XBF_neomagic X server is seems faster too. I love it. I run debian.
Slashdot Mirror
That is the case on point.
Shrink wraps and click-buttons are now enforceable. BE VERY AFRAID!
Minority/Infancy is a defense to contract.
If a child under 18 enters into contract, and is later sued for breach of that contract, the minor child can assert minority as an absolute defense.
Alternatively, a minor child may disaffirm a contract at any time. This is usually performed by a writing on the minor's behalf, or in court with a motion to set aside the transaction.
Words like 'likely,' 'substantially,' 'reasonable,' 'reasonably likely,' 'may,' 'might,' 'could,' 'probable...' the list goes on...
This type of language in a license renders it vague from the parties' points of view.
This means that to end the license would require courts and a jury to decide whether the relevant facts of the case fit into the box that the language in question seeks to make.
'Revocation will occur when event X occurs.' This is an example of concrete legalese.
'Revocation will occur if event X becomes reasonably likely.' This is vague legalese designed to give the licensor discretion (read leeway) to decide when to sue.
To avoid vague legalese, be sure that the license speaks in terms of 'will,' 'becomes definite,' 'is' etc. Instead of likelihoods, it should speak in terms of definite contingencies.
If one is careful of this, then the licensor and licensee can be sure when a term is violated or not.
Here is a simple test that one should apply to any term or provision in a license: "How many different ways can I violate this provision?" The closer the number gets to 1, the better.
Cheers!
I'm getting the same problem.
I'm running 2.2.3 on a debian system.
What is the remedy?
Email me; I'd like to discuss things with you if you wouldn't mind.
;>.
I'd be interested in learning more about your involvement with linux, OSS, etc. from the perspective of a legal professional.
I'll be finishing law school here in a few months. I don't plan on practicing law much either. I have a business plan
He said it best "First thing we do, Let's kill all the lawyers."
Since I am one, I often reflect on this quaint little addage.
All it means is that bitching and bickering have been around for a long time. And as someone who has had first hand experience with divorce, criminal, bankruptcy, etc., etc., it's usually the clients that want to get dirty, not the lawyers.
The lawyers just say "hell, ya! we'll smear 'em for ya," and the client sits back and loves watching his big guns trample the opposition. At least that is the perception.
It's an sick fucking world my friend; lawyers are merely its mouthpiece...
All this article states is that the IP Attorney market will be replaced by transaction practices.
In other words, drop your IP attorney for a good Contract/Licencing Attorney.
As much as you hate us, you can't get rid of us.
Some of us do work for free (i.e., me)
But then again, I'm almost certain that I'm the only lawyer who uses Debian on a full-time basis.
If there are any lawyer readers here, email me and I'll show you how to be a much stronger force on the internet than the rest of your M$-o-phile colleagues.
PEACE
I truly would prefer to use WP8 over SO5, but on my system WP8's font rendering can be illegible at times.
SO501 on the other runs wonderfully. No crashes, no problems. It's fast.
When I ran Caldera + KDE1.0 it was pretty slow and it crashed.
Thank god I moved to the superior distro. I was hesitant to download SO over again because (you know why)...
I'm glad I did. Even the browser is fast enough for me. I don't mind it at all. This prevents me from having to browse with netscape while writing docs (a serious memory saver).
I'm pretty satisfied with so501. I'll hold off on final judgment when wp9 and Corel's Office 2000 comes out on linux. But if they don't make their fonts work right in X, I'll be a SO loyalist...
As a die-hard Debian 'luser,' I must admit that I definitely would not invest in Debian.
I would definitely (and have) contributed, and made donations.
I would definitely not pay $50 for RedHat. Why would I do that when I can get a distro equal to or better for free?
(Hey, I'm not stupid; I can read install HOWTOs)
I would definitely invest in RedHat stock (if and when they IPO).
Therefore, I would make money on RedHat's commercial success, in part, by saving $50.
Lastly, I can run my commercial server using the most secure, reliable, and easily upgradable Debian.
I'm very happy. PEACE!
At real technical institutions, (i.e., the UC system, CalTech, MIT), unix is the development tool.
Windows is not taught. I'm not a programmer so I can't really say why exactly, but all the students I know who learn CS learn it in linux, because it is a unix one can afford.
If you think, gcc, gdb, emacs, vi, etc. are tinker toys, then you are a tinker toy.`
My girlfriend's cs classes at uc davis even banned them from using PICO (why?) because they wanted them to learn real editors (i.e., vi/emacs). So there.
Buddy, you're a commercial, a T-Shirt; your a 30-second sound byte.
I use linux now for everything. I've discovered that for a profession that is entirely engaged in text documents, linux is the answer.
;?
Now that legal research has switched to the internet, lawyers (and other info research oriented professions) need a computer that can stay on the internet all day, dowload hundreds of pages of text/html files, and never cough.
I've lost hundreds of hours over the years do the same in a Windows environment. My system has crashed and burned baby!
So when you say, 'use windows to be more productive.' I beg to differ. Who remembers to hit the save button every five minutes to ensure no information loss.
In fact, in the legal setting those lost hours may not be billable (i.e., they are the fault of the attorney's negligence in using something defective).
No, Linux has been a godsend for me. My uptime is permanent, My 56k modem connection pulls info at 10K/sec. (yes it's true 'insmod bsd_comp && insmod ppp_deflate).
I work on legal issues for debian. Nothing could be better. When I share documents with my colleagues, I show them how they can edit documents in netscape's 'composer' and everyone can share no matter what wprocessor they use. Now the legal market is fully balkanized with users of wp-dos, Word9x, and WP6-8. There are a rediculous number of doc formatters.
I say compose in plain text/html, edit in plain text/html. Post info to intranet server. Format in your wordprocessor.
Needless to say. I never have Netscape composer crash on me. But for serious writing, I use PICO(TM).
I'd use vi, but I never learned how to make it word wrap. emacs is the same way. Although now I write html in emacs.
Give Joe Six pack the following linux configuration. xdm starts on boot, wmaker comes up. Big square icons for the following (wp, or staroffice, netscape, terminal). Tell them, in the black window type 'pon.'
There you go. Browser, wordprocessor. ppp connection. What else is there for Joe Six pack. Joe's gonna love how much faster his internet connection is now.
I'm a lawyer, trust me
If Microsoft hired you... Well I can see why their products crash so much. If you can't spell, write a complete sentence, or use proper grammar, it becomes obvious what is wrong with microsoft.
I thought MS Word had a spell check, and a grammar check. Use it.
As to linux crashing... I bought a dell laptop and a few months later they sent me a Win98 upgrade. That day I saw on the new how Bill was demonstrating Win98. He used a scanner and the damn thing locked up on him. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
There was a press release a while back. You say GNU/Linux. Only debian is Debian GNU/Linux. Debian, GNOME, emacs, etc. are part of the GNU project. So you gotta love em.
Debian is a better distro not because of taste or preference, but because objective standards (i.e., stability, upgrade, quality of packages overall, user support, etc. etc.) is better. If there are objective standards for making an evaluation, then the evaluation is valid. RedHat has one thing going for it--hardware detection. Debian is just better. I'm no closed minded zealot. I spent a full year trying out the various distributions. I've tried all that run on x86, and used them for at least one month for many hours. Debian really is easier, faster, stabler, easier to upgrade, etc. Dial the internet (type 'pon' or 'wvdial'); upgrade your distro (apt-get update; apt-get upgrade); install something (apt-get install something.deb). Have any window manager, have libc5 and glibc2 , old libs, new libs, any mta, any news server, any mua. Anything that runs on linux can run on debian. You slack folks can even compile tar.gz stuff to run. I have the 2.2 kernel, and the pcmcia-cs tar.gz stuff going;
I did the same for PINE (then I packaged it... http://ompages.com/debian/pkgs/pine/pine.html). No, I'm not committed to debian because of some irrational exhuberance for any old distro. I spend a long time evaluating and deciding what was better. Debian is definitely and unequivocably(sp?), the best. Try debian, try it right. If you have any troubled go to irc.us.debian.org #debian and debian-user-request@lists.debian.org and get help fast (like real time support folks). Don't be afraid, you can do it.
I know that debian is really easy to install. But newbies go crazy with figuring out what hardware settings they need for X. If debian had an install that did all the video hardware detections (and set it up right) we'd be the king distro... This would be especially wonderful for laptop users. Now that there's a neomagic-xserver, there is no reason not to.
You won't because RH is so easy to install. But I guarantee you that if you install debian you will love it. The release was delayed for one package 'dpkg.' What that tells you is that debian is serious about stable releases. I upgraded to slink 4 months ago and no package breaks or crashes. Yesterday I apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and in about 2 hours I had a very very stable and fast debian super distro. My 56k modem pulls this website down between 5kbps and 12. My system is faster and more stable than yours, and I don't need the worlds greatest hardware to do it.
Debian is not 'just another distro.' It's a very mature and widely used distro. Without marketing it's #2. All debian needs is an installer that kicks RH's ass, and RH will be contributing to debian.
You've never used deb packages, or apt-get? I'm so sorry.
Debian 2.0 was and is stable as hell. 2.1 is stable and has more stuff to install.
But as far as stability is concerned, debian 2.0 was absolutely solid.
I don't know what I am...
not funny
I'd like to thank the universal powers at large for making my life worth living again.
I now can upgrade "apt-get update," "apt-get upgrade."
I can install, "overnight me the cd's netgod!"
I will walk the earth like Cain and install the coolest linux ever.
FREEDOM BABY... YEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!!
When I'm done playing with my slink, I'm on gonna get my potato.
--self-proclaimed linux monk....
I'm a lowly law student with a bit of a commercial aspiration. It concerns a networking service aimed at businesses with a special need for confidential communications. I'm going to roll a custom distro based on debian that can be installed on pc/servers to make a cheap but secure server/network. By Dec 1999, I hope to be ready to offer these services. Then, I would begin implementation mid-2000. I think this idea has huge ramifications and can translate into other business opportunities later. I'm a student, so I plan on starting from a shoe-string. Since this is a service, it will not need too much start-up capital. I hate to seek commercial promotion here, but my isolation dictates communication where I can. Email me.
The real question here is: Who the real party in interest? IOW, who owns Linux such that [it] would be injured by GPL violation. In this case, it's Linus (if it's kernel stuff violated). If it's GNU stuff violated, it's GNU. As much as we like to think of linux as owned by everone, in a legal sense the only person who can sue is someone who has a traditional ownership interest. Since Linux has the final say, he's the owner (in the courts' eyes). For the community ownership theory to fly, linus would have to vest his interest in linux 'to all the world' or something like that. In addition, whatever part of the the linux kernel that was violated could be traced to the author. The author (who had his or her code entered into the kernel) has a copyright on that code, and can sue for GPL violation too. Thus, Linus and whoever wrote the specific code that was used to violate the GPL are the real parties in interest. The real parties in interest are the only ones suffering legal damages.
I'm sure Linus, at least, will take action.
I run X at 800x600 at 24bpp. I have a dell desktop too. I actually think my laptop is faster even though it's a 200 v. 266 on my desktop with 2/3 more memory. For some reason, the XBF_neomagic X server is seems faster too. I love it. I run debian.