On 2004-05-13 02:53:33 +0100 Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu> wrote:
MJ Ray <mjr@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:To me, it seems clearly non-free because it terminates if there is legal action against IBM about patents "applicable to" some other software. [...]It only terminates a patent license, not a copyright license. That just makes the license effectively mute about patents (which is true of most licenses we look at). Patents were also discussed for an Intel license [1].
This seems rather worse than being mute about patents, putting IBM in a position of strength if software patents are involved.
So the IBM Public License patent licence is some kind of self-contaminating. Is that as non-free as a self-contaminating copyright licence? Does self-contamination count as contaminating other licences by imposing restrictions on them that aren't in their licences?
Are there patents on the covered work? I guess that is the determining factor, as otherwise the patent licence seems irrelevant. Why include it if there are no patents, though?
The Intel drivers licence appears to be a different question. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing