but it would also mean that you couldn't use the software to kill someone with a drone (doing so would impair their ability to make use of the software)
I don't see any court seriously interpreting such a clause that broadly. You might get a dissent here and there but Antonin Scalia is no longer with us and I just don't see any majority *not* reading in some kind of common-sense implication that the impairment must be against someone who could reasonably be expected to be willing and able to use the software, possibly even that the impairment must be more or less specific to using the software, or at least software in general, and not just a general impairment of doing anything at all. And this is all before considering the other commenters' objections about reasonable impairment like parents or network administrators.
Felker's modification is the worst kind of ticking time bomb that no lawyer would ever advise someone to touch, unless that lawyer is confident that the rightsholder is unable to sue and the illegality won't affect anything else in the project.
Overall I have some sympathy for the underlying motivations for these efforts but legally I agree with this commenter.
Power management, mobile and firmware developer on Linux. Security developer at Aurora. Ex-biologist. mjg59 on Twitter. Content here should not be interpreted as the opinion of my employer. Also on Mastodon.
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Date: 2020-02-21 08:37 pm (UTC)I don't see any court seriously interpreting such a clause that broadly. You might get a dissent here and there but Antonin Scalia is no longer with us and I just don't see any majority *not* reading in some kind of common-sense implication that the impairment must be against someone who could reasonably be expected to be willing and able to use the software, possibly even that the impairment must be more or less specific to using the software, or at least software in general, and not just a general impairment of doing anything at all. And this is all before considering the other commenters' objections about reasonable impairment like parents or network administrators.
Felker's modification is the worst kind of ticking time bomb that no lawyer would ever advise someone to touch, unless that lawyer is confident that the rightsholder is unable to sue and the illegality won't affect anything else in the project.
Overall I have some sympathy for the underlying motivations for these efforts but legally I agree with this commenter.