The Contractual Controversy
So if licenses are legally binding, are they contracts? Well, it depends on whom you ask. In the case of FOSS licenses, the question is contentious. Some legal experts believe that these are bare licenses, which is to say they’re solely nonexclusive copyright licenses that provide blanket, declared permissions to anyone. And this is true! Free and open source licenses definitely contain nonexclusive permissions to copyrighted intellectual property. This is part of what makes them work so well.
Other legal experts believe that a license is a contract, where the thing that the contract covers is the copyrights, defining various obligations of the licensee to the licensor. After all, if a court is to judge upon license ...
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