Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:36:54PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 07:09:21AM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 22, 2004 at 11:44:13AM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > > > Bob creates Emacs, under a "claim patent infringement in this work
> > > > and lose your license to it" license, which includes GIF decoding.
> > > >
> > > > Joe derives XEmacs from that work. This inherits, among many other
> > > > things, GIF decoding.
> > > >
> > > > Bill sues Joe, claiming that XEmacs infringes his GIF patent.
> > > >
> > > > Does and should Bill lose his license to Emacs, in addition to XEmacs?
> > > > I think the answer to both is yes.
> > >
> > > The copyright and patent holder has no need for a license.
> >
> > Bill is not a copyright holder at all in this scenario.
>
> Not a very interesting scenario, then. You can construct a scenario
> where any license seems "reasonable", including a proprietary one. The
> mark of free licenses is that you can't construct any where it's
> unreasonable.
This scenario is constructed to respond to a specific message of Nathanael's,
to argue that 1: for patent defense clauses to be useful, this type of
license loss must occur, and 2: that this behavior is very similar to things
we consider free.
It is not a standalone example to argue that patent defense clauses are free.
Please review the thread.
--
Glenn Maynard
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