[Python-Dev] Licensing // PSF // Motion of non-confidence

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Antoine Pitrou writes:

 > Which is the very wrong thing to do, though. License text should be
 > understandable by non-lawyer people;

This is a common mistake, at least with respect to common-law systems.
Licenses are written in a formal language intended to have precise
semantics, especially in the event of a dispute going to court.  What
you wrote is precisely analogous to "a computer program should be
understandable to non-programmer people".

The fact is, in the U.S. if an ordinary person thinks they understand
a license, then it's probably quite unpredictable what a court will
say about attempts to enforce it.

WTF-an-economist-defending-lawyers??!?!!-ly y'rs,