Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Peter Brink <peter.brink AT brinkdata.se>]

drew Roberts skrev:
> I understand that this is what you are saying, but I will say again - This is 
> a statement which I believe from my reading, big boys in the Free
> Software world would disagree with and I am not talking about the "Open 
> Source" issue.
>
> I think I have seen claims on numerous occasions and I think from people on 
> the inside of the FSF, etc. that the GPL is a license and not a contract. 

A license is a special type of contract. US law has some pretty specific 
rules (IIRC) for when a contract is called a license. Other 
jurisdictions has less specific rules. Regardless - the terms of a 
license is governed by contract law, and to find out which the rules are 
to be used to figure out under which jurisdictions contract law a given 
license is to be interpreted, one has to turn to international private law.

Now I don't know what it is that "the big boys" are disagreeing with, 
but surely they cannot claim that contract law is irrelevant as far as 
Open Source/Content Licenses goes.

> I understand that you are denying that they would be correct in their views, 
> but are you denying that these views are held at all or that I am mistaken in 
> thinking people in the know (on the inside) hold these views.

?????!

I am doing what?

Sorry - but I find the above very confusing... Have I claimed that some 
one is saying something about something at all? What I'm saying is that 
the terms of a copyright license is governed by contract law - that is 
all. Obviously the rules laid out in the relevant copyright law sets the 
boundaries for what two parties can agree upon but how that agreement is 
to be interpreted is still governed by contract law.

/Peter Brink