Does a grammatical error in a license annul the statement? In a license for commercial software, I have recently encountered the following perl pearl of perspicuous and immaculate syntax: [company] does not warrant that use of the Software will operate uninterrupted or error free. Since use cannot operate in any sense, shall the whole sentence be annuled and the license treated as if without it?
company does not warrant that use of the Software will operate uninterrupted or error free. A court will not find that statement to be ambiguous or contradictory. Mere grammatical differences will not void a contract. See Typing errors in legal contract I have recently encountered the following perl of perspicuous and immaculate syntax: Correct grammar and usage is "pearl", not "perl". Perl is a programming language; as for a pearl, you must be thinking of the definition of Pearl Of Wisdom (Merriam-Webster).
We can't really know until the ruling is made. The Supreme Court might issue a ruling that encompasses all software APIs, or may predicate its ruling on this more specific situation, e.g. that because Oracle's library is so extensive its structure can be copyrighted even if that does not necessarily mean that any individual function signature can be copyrighted. They could also decide based on something unrelated to the heart of the copyright question - skimming through the petition for a writ of certiorari, they could make a decision based on the original implied license from Sun, for example. Hopefully their decision will answer the copyright question of function declarations completely, but it isn't required to.
I think you're viewing the use of pronouns and contracts wrong. You are speaking to the Licensee, not some third person. So you would say "You agree to give us all your bases", not "The]y agree to give us all your bases". If you were to use a third person pronoun in describing what the other person is gonna do and what you'll do for them, calling the Licensee "they" is positively confusing, and more likely to cause problems. I hope they see my point.
This answer is limited to United States law. The situation in other countries is definitely different. Under United States law, the owner of a lawfully made copy of a copyrighted work has, as a right of the physical possession of that work, the right to the work's ordinary use. Licenses grant you additional rights such as the right to make derivative works, the right to make copies beyond what's needed for ordinary use, and so on. A pure license doesn't ask for anything in return, it just gives you new rights. Those rights may be conditional, but the conditions are just things you have to do to get new rights. They're not conditions imposed on any existing rights you had. A contract is an agreement between two parties. Both parties must agree to a contract for the contract to be enforceable. Contracts can take away rights you otherwise have. You don't need a license or contract to use a copyrighted work if you lawfully possess a copy of that work. Say you download a copy of a work covered by the GPL. You can refuse to accept the GPL license and you can still use that work. Why? Because no law prohibits you from doing so and there is no civil cause of action for using a lawful copy of a work under US law. But now say you want to give a copy of that work to your friend. This is illegal under US law because 17 USC 106 restrict that right to the copyright holder and there's no applicable exception since that's not part of the ordinary use. For a work covered by the GPL, the license offers to give you that right, a right you wouldn't otherwise have. It imposes conditions on you that are specifically in exchange for the grant of the new right. If you do accept the GPL, it functions as a contract. You got in exchange a right you didn't have before and if you don't comply with the GPL's terms, you don't have the copyright holder's permission to exercise those rights which is required under the law. By contrast, a click-through or EULA takes effect when you agree to it and such agreement is a condition for using the software. That's a pure contract and usually doesn't give you any rights you wouldn't have in the absence of such an agreement other than the use of the software.
I realize there's already an answer, but I'd like to go into more detail. There are generally two kinds of open source software licenses: permissive and copyleft (the latter sometimes called viral). Both are intended to allow people to freely use, modify, and redistribute a work while ensuring the original author gets credit. This contrasts with releasing your work into the public domain, which would allow anyone do literally anything, even claim to be the author. The difference is that permissive licenses allow you to re-license your derivative works however you like, while copyleft licenses require your derivatives to be licensed under the same license (hence the term viral). The reasons you'd choose either one are philosophical and political and beyond the scope of this answer. Both the Apache License and the MIT license are permissive, so incorporating MIT licensed code into your Apache licensed project is certainly allowed. Just be sure to attribute the original author for the parts your incorporated and include a copy of the MIT License terms, as required by the license. Go ahead and read it to make sure you get all the details right; it's fairly short and easy for a layperson to comprehend.
According to US law, the GPL is a license, not a contract. This means it is valid without consideration, it also means if you are in violation of the license, then you are committing copyright infringement, instead of being in breach of a contract. In Germany, the GPL is a contract. And that's fine, because German law doesn't require consideration for a contract to be valid. It's interesting in that the GPL license doesn't require you to state whether you agree to the license/contract or not. But if you don't agree to the contract then there is no contract, and you have no right to use the software.
The CC-ND license seems to be what you are looking for. However, Sec. 2(a) has two conditions, one allowing copying and distribution of the unmodified original (as stated in A), but also allows the user to modify but not distribute a modified version of the work (they may "produce and reproduce, but not Share, Adapted Material"). This would mean that a reader could rewrite your paper, as long as they keep it to themselves. If this bothers you, I think you could not rely on a standard named license, instead you'd have to provide your own – such as CC-ND 4.0 without clause (2)(a)(B). Rewriting a legal document is a risky proposition, even for a legal professional, because you have to carefully think through all of the implications of any new punctuation, adjectives, and deletions. If you contemplate deleting clause (2)(a)(B), you should come up with a line of reasoning that compels you do delete it in order to accomplish your goal, and check that the deletion doesn't thwart that goal. That is why people pay money to lawyers (and also why you need to make your goal clear to that lawyer, lest the agreement be inconsistent with your goal).
They may or may not be violating the license. It's quite possible, even likely, that Microsoft has a license agreement of some sort in place with MongoDB that permits their use. Neither party, however, would be under any obligation to disclose this license to 3rd parties. If indeed there is a violation, a legal action might eventually take place. The usual first step, however, is a demand letter. Again, unless or until a court filing actually takes place, we're in the dark. Totally hypothetical here but the result could be anywhere from an agreement between the parties to damages to cease-and-desist orders. Perhaps some combination of these. I believe Microsoft has offered this service for some years now, so the lack of any visible action on MongoDB's part seems to indicate that they are good with what is going on. Microsoft has almost certainly made an agreement with MongoDB that covers this use. Note also that the license you refer to is not necessarily the only license that this product is offered under. Many companies, and I don't think MongoDB is any exception, offer &quot;free&quot; or low cost licenses for some purposes and then also offer &quot;enterprise&quot; licenses for commercial/large-scale use. As the licensor here, MongoDB is under no obligation to offer one and only one license option to potential licensees.