Re: Open Software License v2.1

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

Brian Thomas Sniffen writes:

> I think you're taking this to a further extreme than necessary, and in
> so doing passing straight through the truth out on to the other side.
> That is, you're right about the situation you describe, but it's not the
> interesting situation.  The interesting way to look at this is that
> most software patents are invalid, and would trivially be thrown out
> by a court.  But not all -- there are some patents which describe a
> real invention, whether implemented in software or hardware.  The RSA
> cryptosystem is a decent example of this.
>
> So there are some legitimate patents, though they're probably a
> minority.  But that means that those people do have a legitimate
> recourse to the courts to enforce their intellectual capital grants.
> And a license which compels them to surrender that recourse is no more
> free than a license which compels them to surrender any other recourse
> to the courts.

The problem with assuming most patents are invalid is that patent
lawsuits are incredibly expensive, even by the standards of the US
legal system, and are not a practical recourse for demonstrating a
patent's invalidity.  Other mechanisms for overturning patents are not
reliable.

You also pretend something happens that does not.  No one is compelled
to give up their recourse in the courts.  One must (under OSLv2.1 and
others) merely choose between prosecuting free software versus keeping
a license for that software.  Under the GPL, one must similarly choose
between keeping source for distributed software versus keeping a
license for that software.

Michael Poole