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

[Gary Momarison]

aahz at netcom.com (Aahz Maruch) writes:

> 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.)

Expound away.  I've seen that claim once before, but I can't say it's
familiar.

It's my current understanding that in a legal context, "license" is 
lazy-speak for "license contract". All licenses are contracts. Any 
agreement between two people is a contract.

Would you find the GPL to be a contract (because of it's words about
"accepting") and the CWI license to be a non-contract license?  Not me.

That sign business is interesting.  If it said "The public may pass.",
one would hope it would be revocable at any time.  But I suspect that
even if it said "The public may forever pass.", it would be revocable.
Different areas of law work differently.

And please expound on some implications of your theory.  Should it 
cause one to prefer certain license/contract wording?