Clarification on copyleft-next 0.3.1

[Richard Fontana]

 On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 9:32 AM Ben Cotton <bcotton at funnelfiasco.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 3, 2026 at 1:08 AM Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org> wrote:
> >
> > > 4. Why is the definitions placed in section 15 ? Should it not be in section 1 instead of being in section 15 for comprehensive ability/ readability ?
> >
> > There have been some versions where the definitions are at the
> > beginning. I had a colleague at Red Hat who liked to put definitions
> > at the end -- they argued that this made the document more readable --
> > and at the relevant time this made an impression on me. In my
> > experience, in US legal contracts, if there is a definitions section
> > it's typically at the beginning, but putting them at the end is not
> > some outlandish or radical practice. I don't know of any other FLOSS
> > license that puts definitions at the end. Future versions of
> > copyleft-next, assuming they have a definitions section, may very well
> > put them in the beginning.
>
> For what it's worth, I find having the definitions at the end more
> readable. In practice, as a non-lawyer user of software licenses, I
> have a "good sense" of what the defined terms generally mean and so
> I'd rather read the actual license part and then look at specific
> definitions later if I need to. This is increasingly true as the
> number of times I've read a particular license recently increases.
>
> The easier it is for a "casual" reader (to the degree that term even
> applies to someone reading a software license) to get the main points
> of the license before their eyes glaze over, the more likely it is
> that they'll be able to avoid accidental violations.

FWIW here's what the currently influential (among US transactional
lawyers of a certain recognizable type) Ken Adams says in _A Manual of
Style for Contract Drafting_:

<quotes>

6.87 A definition can be placed in a definition section, which lists
autonomous definitions in alphabetical order by defined term. . . .

6.88 Alternatively, you can create a defined term “on site” by placing
the definition, in the form of an integrated or autonomous definition,
with a provision that uses the related defined term. . . . [T]he
autonomous definition should come right after the provision that uses
the defined term—placing it before would likely puzzle readers . . . .

6.89 Drafters have traditionally favored placing definitions in
definition sections. That has the disadvantage of forcing any reader
who encounters an unfamiliar defined term to turn to the definition
section to read the definition of that term. From there, the reader
might have to consult the definition of one or more other defined
terms in the definition section before resuming reading. In a document
with many, or complex, defined terms, this flipping back and forth can
disrupt one’s reading.

6.90 But the definition section serves a purpose, in that it reduces
clutter that would otherwise be caused by defining on site a term that
readers likely know the meaning of. So deciding which terms can be
placed in a definition section involves assessing the extent to which
they can be understood independently of their definition.

Where to Place the Definition Section
6.95 The definition section has traditionally been placed at the
beginning of the body of the contract. This is inconsistent with the
notion that provisions that are more important should come first (see
4.84). Readers generally turn first to the deal provisions rather than
slogging through the definitions, and those who tackle the definitions
head-on would likely need to reread them when they encounter, often
many pages later, the provisions using the defined terms.

6.96 If you pare the definition section down to terms that are
inherently familiar, no justification remains for keeping it at the
beginning of the body of the contract, since readers would need to
refer to it only to finetune their understanding. You can safely move
a pared-down definition section toward the back of the contract, to
the boilerplate. When purged of terms best defined on site, the
definition section might be slight enough to consist of a single
section rather than an entire article. In fact, it might be slight
enough for you to dispense with a definition section entirely and
define on site those few defined terms that would otherwise have been
defined in the definition section.

</quotes>

This is pretty consistent with what Ben was saying.

Richard