alt Hacker NewsThis does not read like it was written by a professional. Non-professionals writing licenses and T&Cs cause problems because no organization, for profit or not, wants to be dragged into court to get a "common sense" definition of a word or comma defined, at their expense.
I've heard of large organizations reaching out to places who use amateur T&Cs and licenses, saying "if we give you $X, can you dual license this as MIT, Apache, BSD, or hell anything standard?".
> Access is not conditioned on approval
Is this obvious enough legalese to not waste tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees if you get sued?
Note before you reply: I will not argue with you about how obvious it is. If you are actually a lawyer then it'd be interesting to hear your guidance, which I very much understand is not legal advice. If you're not a lawyer then I'm not.
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It's common for non-lawyers to write terms and conditions, and other contracts.
> I will not argue with you about how obvious it is.
Good. Don't. Because it is exceedingly plain, if concise, English.
Sounds like a smart strategy then. Use an amateur license. People who just want to do stuff know they have your blessing. Corporations will stay away or pay up, not because you made them, but of their own volition. Everyone is happy.
Of course even better is to simply have no explicit license, especially for something like code. Normal people can assume they can do whatever they'd like (basically, public domain). Lawyers will assume they cannot. The only thing stopping someone is their own belief in their self restrictions. i.e. you can use the thing if and only if you don't believe in my authority on the matter.
> > Access is not conditioned on approval
I practice law in California. I've written terms of service that many, many people here on HN will have agreed to. I read this line and didn't know what it meant, or what it intended to mean.
That said:
> If you are actually a lawyer then it'd be interesting to hear your guidance, which I very much understand is not legal advice. If you're not a lawyer then I'm not.
There's no good way to validate lawyerdom on public social media like HN. And while the average lawyer probably remembers enough from law school or bar exams to know slightly more about Web terms of service and legal drafting than the average person, there's nothing to stop non-lawyers from reading up and learning. Eric Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog is a great, public source covering cases on ToS and other issues, for example.
The Bar monopolizes representation within legal institutions. Don't cede the law itself to lawyers.