The drifted SCO thread has opened a new arena. "IS there a place for a de facto IP freedom realm"

[Jon Pruente]

On 9/27/07, Bradley Hook <bhook at kssb.net> wrote:
> Lastly, one fault of the argument presented in the original message is
> the ambiguity of the term "profit". The whole concept of open source
> involves many people contributing, and therefore everyone profiting. A
> profit is simply a gain of value, it doesn't necessarily have to be
> monetary.

Another problem is that for a license to be binding in court it must
function as a contract.  Depending on jurisdiction a contract may not
be binding unless something of real value has been exchanged; ie. real
estate contracts (used to?) usually include language to the effect of
"the sale is for the amount of $1 and other valuable consideration"
The main point of that was that a contract must be beneficial for both
parties involved.  A software license also might not be legally valid
if it cannot be show to have "real" benefit for the issuer and the
licensee.  It may be difficult to prove how the general public has
real benefit by restricting commercial use, though it can be easy to
prove how it is beneficial to the issuer to limit other commercial
use.

It's been several years since I took the requisite Business Law class
at UMKC, and I sold the (huge) textbook the next semester, so my
memory of contract law is getting a tad fuzzy.

Jon.