Re: Open Software License v2.1

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

Brian Thomas Sniffen writes:

> > A) If "you" are Alice and sue Charlie for patent infringement, and he
> >    has complied with your open patent license, he can use that license
> >    as a defense.
> 
> You left out the interesting case -- Alice sues Charlie for patent
> infringement, and he has not complied with her license.

Why is that an interesting case?  More specifically, under what
conditions is it different than Alice suing Charlie for copyright
infringement under a patent-agnostic license such as the GPL?

> > Perhaps you should inform IBM that they cannot sue SCO for GPL
> > violations, as they are currently doing -- or clarify what you mean by
> > "you can't sue for license violation, not of a free license."  See
> > also the Netfilter team's recent copyright lawsuit in Germany.
> 
> As far as I know, IBM is suing SCO for copyright infringement, and
> they both agree that the GPL has nothing to do with it -- SCO because
> it says the GPL isn't binding, IBM because it says SCO wasn't
> doing things the GPL licenses.

This is not a useful distinction.  By definition, copyright
infringement is when someone exercises a reserved right without
license.

Michael Poole