Questions for Guido van Rossum (Was: ...Tim Peters)

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <m3snsh9166.fsf at localhost.localdomain>,
Gary Momarison  <nobody at phony.org> wrote:
>
>I read in a couple of places (eg, /.) a couple of months ago of some
>company's lawyers claiming the GPL for their purchased copyright in some
>program was revocable (I think the claim was "terminate"-able - not
>sure) for some legal reason that wasn't reported well. Something to do
>with the claim that the contract wasn't binding because there was no
>"consideration" (legal jargon sorta meaning "payment") on the part of
>the licensees.

IANAL, but I understand that there is a legal difference between a
"contract" and a "license".  The latter would be more similar to a sign
on a private path that said, "Permission to pass revocable at any time."

(If the legal theory behind the second sentence isn't familiar to you,
let me know and I'll expound on it a bit.)
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