Get legal advice

[chrisjensen]

Overview

Ideally, before hitting a v1.0 of the license, we would get legal advise on the wording of the license and aspects of copyright law.

As this is currently a volunteer project, we'd need to find pro-bono help for this.

[ghost]

Updated for transparency :)

Hello @chrisjensen, I would recommend looking at the American Bar Association for pro-bono help (in the US's jurisdiction, I don't know if they are qualified to give advice in Intl jurisdiction). Personally, I see that an "ethical source" license is badly needed in the midst of certain global events (e.g. Russo-Ukraine conflict, etc.). I was just looking at the project's v1 milestone, and it's 3+ years overdue. I'm curious why there's not much action going on here.

Edit: Try International Assistance for Intl legal help (pro-bono too).

[tommaitland]

@IRod22 We agree that a license such as this is badly needed, and the milestones are quite overdue. We haven't been able to spent a lot of time moving this forward, but also the license has been slowly gaining momentum over that time. 350 stars now!

We'd be happy for some help. If you or others want to assist with open issues such as this one, we'd welcome the help.

[ghost]

The only other thing I can recommend to the team and contributors is to reduce (ideally eliminate) any and all ambiguity. If you look at the link I posted on PR #74. The left sidebar may contain extra info/tips.

[ghost]

The only reliable resource that I could find is a WikiHow article about drafting a license. If you head to the Expert Q&A, you can ask an expert that may be able to find a pro bono lawyer that can serve international jurisdiction. I would avoid "Lawyers With Out Borders" because it looks like they only serve select areas.

If someone else plans on asking the experts a question on the matter, I would prefer that you comment that you're asking below, so no toes will not be stepped on. I will see what I can do by the end of this week.

[ghost]

Alright. I sent the following question to the Q&A above:

Where can I find a pro bono lawyer that is qualified for international jurisdiction?

I'll let everyone know when I get a response as soon as possible. Sorry for the late send; I lost track of time on this.

[ghost]

Okay, I know it has only been one business day, or two to three calendar days, since I sent the question to the experts on WikiHow, but I'm feeling that we need a plan B; the reason being that, before I ran into NoHarm, I tried to ask a question on that same Q&A, but I still have not got an answer from the experts. I think we need to ask for assistance from other connections. If any of our fellow devs, or outside readers, know any pro-bono lawyers they use in case of litigation, tell them the @raisely core team and I would appreciate the extra help (I'll still keep looking when I have the extra time, but I think I've exhausted all of my options). The tricky part is the jurisdiction: as NoHarm is an international license, it will need to either at best, be reviewed by a lawyer in int'l jurisdiction if that's even a thing, or at worst, we will need it to be reviewed by multiple lawyers from different jurisdictions.

Now that I think about it, I'm starting to wonder if any other OSS license creators could help out here. I'll try to contact @mozilla about their MPL, but we may also need the help of GNU (FSF) and @mit with their experience on writing their respective licenses.

[ghost]

It's been a seven calendar days (four business days) since I asked on the Q&A, and I think we need help from other devs.

---

Does anyone know a pro-bono lawyer to ask for legal advice? If so, the @raisely core team and I would prefer a reply to this comment with a way to contact them.

[ghost]

I just finished sending an email to Mozilla ([email protected]) with the following message:

Hello there, I would like to ask a question about the creation and revision process of the Mozilla Public License. More specifically, I would like to ask about where Mozilla gets the MPL reviewed from a legal expert. Raisely, which is an organization that I have contributed code to, is drafting its Do No Harm license, but it needs help with getting legal advice before the license is published. More information and the discussion can be found here.

Thank you,
Ivan Rodriguez.

---

They might ask to discuss with a Raisely representative about finding a lawyer, but I will let you all know who they wish to discuss with.

[KernelDeimos]

Hi, I've seen this license used in other projects. I had a strong hunch that it had not been looked over or edited by a legal professional. I think it should say that at the very top of the README.md in this repo. Something like:

DISCLAIMER: This license has not been reviewed by a legal professional, and has not been tried in a courtroom.

This means this license will only be used be people who understand the risks, thereby reducing the potential for this very license to cause harm.

[realpixelcode]

I'm not a fan of the “But is it court-tested?” criterion.

Firstly, every case is different – even if there is some similarity. Even the smallest differences could produce an unexpectedly different ruling.

Secondly, judges are independent in their decisions. In many jurisdictions, the judge is not forced to follow another court’s legal interpretation.

Thirdly, a court ruling would only be binding for one specific country anyway, since the legal situation in other jurisdictions may be completely different.

– https://blog.forgoodeyesonly.eu/2022/06/a-defence-of-ethical-licencing/#why-the-concept-of-court-tested-is-nonsense

[KernelDeimos]

I can't access the link because the server is timing out, but after reading your quote and a bit of research I agree with you. I heard the idea of the court-tested criterion somewhere else and didn't think hard enough about it; the MIT license is respected and very popular yet also has not been tried in court (as far as a few quick searches and AI prompts can tell me).

I do maintain that there should be a disclaimer saying the license hasn't been reviewed by a legal professional. I have skepticism that this license could ever work, so I'm also eager to check out that link when the server is responding again to see if the article might persuade me otherwise.

[realpixelcode]

I can't access the link because the server is timing out

Sorry, that's Codeberg Pages' fault. 😕

(The quote was the part relevant for this discussion though.)

I do maintain that there should be a disclaimer saying the license hasn't been reviewed by a legal professional.

Yes, I agree, a review by (and, until then, a disclaimer) someone who is familiar with at least one jurisdiction's law would be very beneficial, as sometimes even details matter.

For example, a lawyer once explained to me that fully rejecting any responsibility/liability whatsoever – even in case of gross negligence – (like the MIT licence does) is actually not legally possible in certain jurisdictions. And since MIT doesn't have a severability clause, a partial invalidity of MIT could lead to full invalidity, wherefore I was advised to modify MIT's terms slightly:

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY¹ OF ANY KIND
…
¹ (at least in the absence of gross negligence and intent to the detriment of the Licensee)

So, yes, licencors should be aware that there might be legal challenges.