Linux Law

Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away.

Being a miner, as soon as you're too old and tired and sick and stupid to
do your job properly, you have to go, where the very opposite applies with
the judges.
                -- Beyond the Fringe

Between grand theft and a legal fee, there only stands a law degree.

... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be
proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge
to mankind.  The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women
were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still
unimpeachable.  The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and
in law.  Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than
the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death.  If
there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute
of value.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and
trousers that don't match.

Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the
most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion.  A judge of the Court of
Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which
reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground nuts) Order, the expression
nuts shall have reference to such nuts, other than ground nuts, as would
but for this amending Order not qualify as nuts (unground) (other than ground
nuts) by reason of their being nuts (unground)."
                -- Guiness Book of World Records, 1973

Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.

Diogenes went to look for an honest lawyer. "How's it going?", someone
asked him, after a few days.
        "Not too bad", replied Diogenes. "I still have my lantern."

[District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are
two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity:

(1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and
    confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a pile and hold
    a press conference where you announce that they have a street value
    of $850 million.  These raids never fail, because ALL high schools,
    including brand-new, never-used ones, have at least 53 marijuana
    cigarettes in the lockers.  As far as anyone can tell, the locker
    factory puts them there.
(2) Raid an "adult book store" and hold a press conference where you
    announce you are charging the owner with 850 counts of being a
    piece of human sleaze.  This also never fails, because you always
    get a conviction.  A juror at a pornography trial is not about to
    state for the record that he finds nothing obscene about a movie
    where actors engage in sexual activities with live snakes and a
    fire extinguisher.  He is going to convict the bookstore owner, and
    vote for the death penalty just to make sure nobody gets the wrong
    impression.
                -- Dave Barry, "Pornography"

District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape
injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any
damage inflicted on the vehicle.