The following is a Harvey Birdman Rule conversation disclosure.
At LinuxCon, Fontana and I were discussing his change in:
commit 5823daf41d2bbb757e49b87b8e697fd793317019
Author: Richard Fontana <fontana2012(a)gmail.com>
Date: 2012-07-05 18:44:45 -0400
Wherein he removes the acceptance clause entirely from copyleft-next. I
argued briefly that perhaps the acceptance clause was useful, because it
allowed a contract claim to more easily be brought when copyright
infringement has occurred (basically as a secondary cause of action
and/or legal claim, which could be argued in the alternative of
copyright infringement).
Ultimately, I agreed with Fontana that perhaps the acceptance provision
isn't terribly useful from an enforcement perspective, because copyright
law gives us all the tools we need, and we don't get specifically an
additional enforcement claim simply because the entity engaged in
activities governed by copyright law is reminded of their obligations
and that they have no other license.
However, this question probably deserves more study, as if there is some
additional benefit that GPLv2 and GPLv3 families of licenses are getting
from having an acceptance clause, then one should also be present in
copyleft-next.
In particular, Fontana notes that it might be possible that the
acceptance clause is doing something different entirely unrelated to
bringing forth a contract claim.
--
-- bkuhn