[Committee-d] Choice of law, forum and venue (Re: Today's meeting)

[Masayuki Hatta]

Hi,

>>>>> In <20061010230455.GG3716 at fencepost> 
>>>>>	Brett Smith <brett at fsf.org> wrote:

> * Some meta-discussion about the comment in stet about allowing
>   choice of law clauses for Japan.

Yes, Comment #1611.  I am still not sure how to handle this issue.  I
am afraid that the deadline for Final Call might be past, but I
appreciate your comments.

The problem is simple -- in Japan, a contract has stronger effect than
mere declaration of one's intent.  For example, I might not able (or
actually, have no way) to demand a GPL-violator to release the source
code if the court thinks GPL is my declaration, not a contract between
us.  In this case, GPLv3 is much weaker than GPLv2.  GPLv3 DD2 is much
better than DD1, since the "Not a Contract" phrase had gone in Cl.9,
but there is still room to dispute.

How do you think?

Best regards,
MH

--
Masayuki Hatta
Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo